


age of consent

by substanceblack



Series: Americana [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: 1970s summercamp au, M/M, an awkward summertime fling founded upon teenage exploration and mutual dad issues, applicable warnings listed in the notes before chapters, benarmie, debatably fluff, period relevant homophobia external and internal, slowburn-ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-18 15:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9392408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/substanceblack/pseuds/substanceblack
Summary: (if you are searching for oh, is it love?, this is it. it's merely undergone a name change.)Armitage Hux (16, scary) is a "Counselor in Training" at Camp Endor where he has spent far too many summers. His father, up until this year, was a Counselor himself and Armitage suffers under his shadow.Ben Solo (15, doesn't want to be here) is forced to attend Camp Endor after prior efforts to get him out of his room and enjoy his summer vacation fail.Cue two socially alienated teens accepting each other's company after a series of shared mishaps, and more making out than is probably healthy.(title based onthe song by new order.)





	1. introductions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> within the first few lines, Han does drop the q-slur. it's more a symptom of the time period than any intentional malice, but just heads up. 
> 
> also, shoutout to my beta [Ellstra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellstra/pseuds/Ellstra) who catches all my faulty punctuation and advised me against a cheesy line at the end I've incorporated regardless.

  
  
“He’s not _too soft_ , Han.” Mom’s agitated scoff carries from the base of the stairs. “He’s just more attuned to things.”

Ben’s dad remains unconvinced. “Attuned to _what_ , Sweetheart? The flowers?” Ben cringes. “Kids’ll think he’s a queer if they don’t already. Besides, Leia. He’s not a boy anymore. Can’t keep letting hide under your skirts.”

“You know he’s not ‘hiding under my skirts!’”

“He’s sure hiding in his room! When’s the last time the kid even got outside? It’s not healthy, Hun!”

Ben sighs miserably from where he’s curled behind his bedroom door, listening. He’s been here at least half an hour, the time that’s spanned since they’d started arguing, and his ass is numb, his back, stiff. Stubbornly, he ignores both discomforts, drawing his knees a little tighter to his chest before dejectedly dropping his chin on top of them. He glares down at his bare feet, and wiggles his toes some in restlessness.

If Ben were caught here, his mom would undoubtedly lecture him before shitting a crapton of meaningless apologies for both hers and dad’s behavior (ever the diplomat). She hasn’t caught him, though, not yet, and Ben couldn’t _not_ hear them if he wanted to. They’re fighting _right there_. Besides, they’re arguing about _him_ , _his_ future. Even if he dreads it, it’s his right to know.

“You know he hasn’t got many friends his own age,” Ben’s mom points out, desperately. ‘Hasn’t got many’ is generous. Ben has none. “Who do you expect him to be spending time with?”

“ _Exactly,_ ” Dad intones, exasperation dripping heavy from the word. “And he won’t make any, either, if you keep enabling him like this!”

It’s been the subject of their bickering all week. Ben’s fucking sick of it, though he fears its resolution, too. Chances are, it will involve himself and a long, painful, drawn-out family discussion that brings them nowhere. _He_ fails to see what’s so wrong with spending the Summer in his room, especially when all attempts to be around others his age end with a call home, but _they_ can’t seem to agree.

“There’s nothing wrong with how he’s behaving Han! It’s perfectly normal!”

Times like now, Ben’s mom is a voice of reason. The tone his dad uses next still makes him burn with shame.

“Hardly,” the man cuts.

Ben digs his bitten nails into his palms in embarrassment, recognizing that his dad is right. He _isn’t_ normal.

Mom catches them both off guard with her return.

“You’re only saying that because he isn’t like _you_.”

At these words, Dad shuts up a moment, and Ben himself blinks, his balled fists loosening. They’re both stunned. Ben wonders if his mom is right. Though his heart confirms it, his mind’s still hesitant.

“Yeah, well…” Ben’s dad persists. He’s speaking only to have the last word, even if he’s clearly lost. “You’re raising a girl, is all I’m saying.”

Ben sighs, and senses, even if he can’t hear it, that his mom, downstairs, has done the same. At least they’re usually on the same page when it comes to Dad’s antics.

The fight is over now, and Mom and Dad are carrying on in lower tones, moving for the kitchen. Unfortunately, Ben can make out less and less of what they’re saying as a result. He’s forced to scramble for the vent on the opposite side of his room to catch the rest. Before he can press his ear to it, there’s a pile of laundry to hurriedly claw out of the way, but eventually his cheek touches the cold grate.

“...Didn’t mean it like that, Leia. All I’m saying is that the kid needs to get out more. God knows he’ll only kill me if I try and take him out in _The Falcon_ again.”

 _The Falcon_ is Ben’s dad’s RV, one that Ben has been subjected to too many terrible vacations in. It’s a piece of junk; heavily rigged, in constant need of repairs, and a literal oven inside. He can’t decide, however, if he hates the vehicle or the close quarters it forces him to share with his family more. The only real appeal of the thing is that sometimes he gets to drive it behind his mom’s back, if she’s out of the house and his dad’s in a good mood (drunk). Ben will be allowed to officially drive after getting his permit when he turns sixteen in October. He wonders though, hearing his dad’s voice rises in response to another sharp comment from his mom, if he’ll even make it that long. When he hears the word ‘camp’ a few minutes later, he decides he definitely won’t.

Ben wonders if he just stacked enough furniture against his bedroom door, they wouldn’t be able to make him go. The fantasy is quickly sabotaged by the all-too-likely reality of his dad taking a ladder to his window instead, and dragging him out that way. Chewing a hangnail from his thumb, Ben pulls himself off the vent, and turns to stare dejectedly at his door. He wonders how long he’ll manage to ignore his hunger and avoid both of them.

Twenty minutes later, Ben’s mom calls him down for lunch, and he realizes; not very long.  
  
  
  
  
It’s as Ben’s biting into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich his mom approaches the subject of summer camp with him directly. Her tone is that of wary compassion; trying to sound sweet but sounding so much so Ben knows she’s about to drop something he won’t like. It’s the tone you approach an unfamiliar animal with. It’s bullshit.

As she suggests he may “make friends” Ben glares, and slams his glass back down on the table a bit too loudly. Were it not empty, there’d have been milk everywhere, and Ben almost wishes the mess had been made. He hates disagreeing with his mom, but she’s betrayed him, selling him out to Dad like this. There’s no way he’s going if he has any say in it.

Turns out he has even less say than he thought.

Ben flinches when his mom snaps at him for a particularly nasty comment he’s made. His voices rises, while hers remains cruelly placating if not sharp. She tells him that he’s going whether he likes it or not, and that she’d better not have to drag him there by his ears. Ben quiets at this, and the tips of his ears flush at the insinuation. He doesn’t finish his sandwich.  
  
  
  
  
Camp starts just a few weeks later.

The drive from Long Beach (where Ben has lived his entire, miserable life) to Camp Endor (a place near the Yosemite National Park, though where, he doesn’t know and doesn’t care since his escape seems dubious) is a grueling one. Ben’s parents though, blindly, seem to be enjoying the experience of dragging Ben out to a two-week daycare. He sulks in the backseat of his dad’s ugly Ford Station Wagon, head to the window despite how it rattles his skull.

Ben falls asleep at some point, as he wakes disoriented hours later to his mother tapping his thigh. He sits up with a burdened groan, and rubbing his cheek, discovers a long trail of drool he wipes unceremoniously off on his shirt before making any real effort to survey his surroundings. They're not at the camp yet, but in the parking lot of some gas station "only an hour away! his mom cheerfully supplies. Ben marvels at the source of her excitements, as he definitely doesn't share it. 

Though they’re closer to the camp than Ben wants to be, and the gas station is about as depressing as they come, he steps out of the car anyways to stretch, grateful for any excuse to be out of the backseat at this point. When he realizes, with a sudden urgency, how badly he needs to piss, he’s quick to chase his mom into the mart. He spots the men’s room in the back corner beside a stack of newspapers headlining Nixon, and darts inside.

Ben returns to the car before his parents. While they are still in the store, paying for gas and probably food, too, with how long they’re taking, he lays himself out in the backseat and stares up at the hole that’s been in the material of the car’s ceiling for as long as he can remember. His hand only naturally goes to pick at it. With the way he’s spread out, the car door digs into Ben’s shoulder and his legs are bent at odd angles to fit (like a bug’s, he thinks looking over himself). It’s better than standing around in the parking lot looking lost though, so he tolerates it. Ben’s nearly his dad’s height already, and his mom thinks he’ll end up even taller. He isn’t sure he wants to be. He stands out enough already.

Ineluctably, Ben’s mind wanders to thoughts of the camp they’re approaching. He wonders if the bunks will be long enough for him, or if his feet will stick awkwardly out the end. He wonders if there will be any boys taller than him, then wonders if any will want to be near him at all. Ben convinces himself he doesn’t care, but doesn’t completely believe himself, either.

The sound of the car door opening startles Ben from his thoughts, and he quickly rips his hand away from the ceiling. His dad would skin him alive if he caught him picking at it again; the man treasures the car second only to _The Falcon_. As he slips back into the front seat however, he appears not to have noticed Ben’s crime. His mom is second to the car, and settles into her seat with a brown, paper back in her grip. Before buckling, she reaches back to pass Ben a pack of peanut m &m’s. They’re his favorite, and she knows. Ben almost feels too guilty to accept them after their recent fighting, but he takes them anyways. He finds a small comfort in popping the first, melty few into his mouth.  
  
After he’s started the car, rebooting loud vents which wash hot air over Ben’s already sweaty form, Dad reaches back to ruffle a hand through his “too-long” hair which he’s long since given up on arguing he cut. He offers something like a smile. Ben hates it; his scattered, distant attempts at being a dad, but the touch, too.

“You ready kid?” Dad asks. ”Would have killed to have gone to one of these back in my day.”

Mom rolls her eyes at the comment, casting him a mischievous glance that suggests just _why_ he may have been so keen to go. It’s disgusting.

Ben grimaces, and sinks down into his seat until his dad relents, no longer able to reach him. He’d kill _not_ to go, he’s certain.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Armitage frowns, though it’s subtle enough to pass for a neutral expression. He’s been wearing the same, impassive face for a while now, monitoring his tone and speech and behavior for too many hours, and he’s growing impatient. Father’s hands rest heavy on his shoulders; subtle, an illusion of fondness, closeness, but in truth just a symptom of the man’s shallow trust in him. He parades Armitage around like a trophy dog, doesn’t allow him to leave his sight, and Armitage is growing less and less guilty for wishing that he’d leave sooner.

He sighs as inconspicuously as he can manage.

Father has been a Counselor here, at Camp Endor, for as long as Armitage can remember, vicariously reliving his boyhood, Armitage suspects, though as to why he’d felt the need to Armitage had never pinpointed. This would be the first year Armitage would attend free of him, as the man has finally accepted his body is no longer fit for the demands of the job, but he will not be here as a camper. Instead, sixteen now, and soon to be seventeen in September, Armitage attends as a Counselor in Training. It is a title he will wear proudly as it _is_ a title, one that will not only grant him authority over his younger peers but a brief independence from his father, but this isn’t to imply that he _wants_ to be here.

For one, Californian summers are deplorable, temperatures reaching insane peaks, and he’s expected to endure them, once again, in wooden cabins without air conditioning. Two, invariably Armitage returned home with angry, red, sunburnt skin covered in bug bites that more resembled welts. As he bears potentially the fairest complexion of his peers, and he’s never been able to pack weight of any kind, ‘Delicate Armie’ was one nickname boys had been prone to calling him in junior high. Thus, though Father has packed him “sunscreen” (a lotion which supposedly prevents sunburns but that A) is horribly uncomfortable, sticky, and greasy on his skin, B) gives him an awful, even paler glow, and C) Armitage has never seen anyone else use in his life), he intends to pour it down the shower drains as soon as he’s able. He wouldn’t humiliate himself in front of his mostly new group of peers, not now that he finally holds the reigns of his own reputation in his father’s absence. For these few miserable hours Armitage has left under the all-seeing eyes of the man, however, he’ll do as he’s told.

Armitage is jostled from his small reverie as he’s prompted forwards by the grip on his shoulders, steered to face a girl who looks to be about his own age.

The girl has chin-length blonde hair, a little short for Father’s tastes, Armitage knows. Her smile is tight, and there’s a crinkle to her eyes that suggests amusement at the prospect of knowing something Armitage doesn’t.

“Make nice with Jacqueline,” Father prompts. Armitage says nothing yet. “Looks like you two will be sharing a cabin.”

There’s a chuckle from the adults in the room at that, an implication that makes Armitage’s face burn in silent loathing. Jacqueline, at least, seems to mirror his distaste, wearing a tight grimace now. They shake hands, and Father pats Armitage a little too hard on the back, still tickled by the idea of whatever he crassly believes will go down in the cabin absent of his supervision.

Armitage grimaces but grits through it, for now.

It’s not as though he can voice his aversion to women in his defense.  
  
  
  
  
Far too much time, and far too many glances to the clock on the wall pass before Father finally leaves, but eventually Armitage finds himself free. It’s a more literal weight off his shoulders.

As of current, at three in the afternoon of the first Sunday of camp, Armitage’s responsibilities have not yet begun. Instead, he’s at the end of one of the dining hall’s many picnic tables, accompanied by the three other Counselors in Training he’ll be working with, and doing nothing but staring at the open camp brochures in front of them. Jacqueline, the blonde he shook hands with earlier, sits beside Armitage, seeming about as bored as he is. He’s learned recently through small talk that she prefers to go by her last name, Phasma, instead. He obliges.

Both Phasma and Susan Unamo (a rather gaunt and fatigued looking brunette who runs track at her school and is surprisingly good at math) are in charge of the girl’s half of the camp. Things have always been divided by sexes, which Armitage has known. Unfortunately, the third Counselor in Training and Hux’s partner in leading the boy’s half of the camp is none other than Dopheld fucking Mitaka.

Dopheld is, at face value, harmless enough. He does what he’s told with a terrified vigor, but six times out of ten manages to screw up in methods never before even considered a possibility. His quivering demeanor isn’t his fault, entirely (though his incompetence may be). Dopheld’s father is a bitter, declining, disabled veteran of Vietnam and far too fast to reprimand his son for any misdemeanor. Armitage, in his years of knowing Dopheld, has walked an uncomfortable line between pitying him and snapping at him himself. Regardless, Armitage doesn’t know how he made the cut out Counselor in Training, and only prays he won’t fuck things up for him too badly. He almost plans on enjoying himself, here. He won’t have his performance sabotaged by his incompetent co-leader if he can help it at all.

Armitage has, at some point, allowed his face to drop into his hands, massaging his temples absently to soothe a headache that hasn’t quite broken but is anticipated. It’s an inevitability, he’s certain, but for now the touch is soothing regardless and one of the few things keeping him awake. The table is quiet, all four of them sitting in general silence and observing the incoming campers but of course, Dopheld, blind to social cues, choses to disrupt the peace to chat pointlessly with Armitage again.

“Isn’t that the mayor’s kid?”

Armitage’s eyes open, and fingers forming exasperated V’s he glances around just to humor the other. When he spots no one outwardly boasting such a title, he looks tiredly back to Dopheld for help, in truth wishing he would just drop the subject altogether.

“Over there,” Dopheld points, too vague to be of any real help. “Jean jacket, dark hair, um kinda… kinda... big ears.” He recoils from his own words as though he’d said something far more insulting than the size of a stranger’s features.

Armitage sighs, then peeling his face from his hands makes a second effort to spot the boy in question. His eyes eventually land on him, his hair the biggest giveaway. Despite it being grown out past his chin, the tips of his ears still manage to peek through, indeed large. He’s hardly dressed well enough to be the son of any politician, looking a lot more like he benefits from clothing donated to charity, but then again, by his sunken posture and apparent scowl, he also appears quite spoiled. California’s unfortunately all too full of his type. Armitage wonders if he also _surfs_.

“What’s his name, again?” Armitage asks. Though he uses “again”, he’s positive Dopheld’s never told him.

“Uh, Ben Solo. I mean, I think. Overheard-”

Dopheld trails off when the boy looks up, despite the growing chatter of the hall appearing to have caught his name. Dark, worried eyes scan wildly for a moment before landing on Armitage who hasn’t looked away yet, hasn’t had his fill. Eyebrows shooting up, confusion contorting his features, “Ben Solo” gives an exquisite impression of a deer in headlights, at least before Armitage’s indifferent stare finally forces him to look away again.

“Whoops.” Dopheld offers with a nervous smile, then continues, unphased. “Mayor of Long Beach, I forgot to mention. Have you been to The Pike?”  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Ben realizes suddenly and overwhelmingly how badly he wants to be back home. As pissed as he is with his mom and dad both, as much as they argued, as frustrating as his dad is to be around, Ben would do just about anything to be back with them right now. The stimulus here is too much. There’s constant movement, whispers, laughs, greetings, “ _can we sit here_ ”s, “ _mayor’s kid_ ”s, “ _organa’s son?_ ”s, and “ _is he even right in the head?_ ”s. Ben doesn’t know who sorted out his heritage, or how. He guesses they might have spotted him with his mom in the parking lot (she just _had_ to give him a goodbye kiss on his forehead, despite how he’d tried to squirm away). Whoever they are and however the found out, he’s feeling more and more inclined to punch them for having had spread it, because there’s no escaping it now.

Anywhere he goes, the shadow of his parents looms over him. Ben’s doubly fucked if anyone finds out about his dad’s escapades on the Mexican border. As a kid, Ben used to think it was fun to be able to brag about his parents, but he’s come to learn that’s _all_ anyone ever cares about, and he’s sick of it.

That, and he doesn’t need any more attention brought to himself, either. Ben has a particular talent for standing out wherever he goes, and ostracizing himself through his demeanor alone.

Ben wonders what thoughts were running through the mind of the redheaded boy whose eyes he’d just met. He’s sure they weren’t positive. Even now, the ginger maintains the faintly derisive sneer that had curled his lips at the sight of Ben. Ben doesn’t know what he’s done already to have given the other so bad an impression of him, only that some, stupid, part of him wishes he could somehow take it back.  
  
  
  
  
It’s nearly six by the time the last sets of parents and campers make it in, say their goodbyes, and separate. The Dining Hall is a lot fuller now than it had been when Ben arrived way too early, and the steady chatter that has been building since he came has devolved into a steady roar as more and more kids grow more and more excited. Ben had been afforded some solitude at the end of the table, but the hall is too packed now to accommodate for his personal bubble and he’s sitting way closer to the other campers than he’d like. He wants to get up and pace instead, but it’s a bad idea, and there isn’t much room for that, anyways.

Ben blows a chunk of hair from his face before resettling his head in his arms and wondering if he can somehow sleep this all off. This dream is dashed quickly as a shrill whistle cuts through the air. Bitter and bleary-eyed, Ben lifts his head again.

The whistle, blown by an adult Ben guesses is one of the counselors, is followed by an obnoxious, clapped rhythm that the campers are expected to repeat with their own hands. The younger ones do. Only a few others around Ben’s age remain unmoving. The camp takes kids as young as eight, Ben had learned, flicking through a pamphlet when the boredom of the trip up here had finally won him over, and maxes out at fifteen, his age, meaning he’s among the oldest here. It makes the whole ordeal even worse, as he guesses this means all of their activities are going to be aimed at younger age groups as well.

Bored already, and looking for anything to watch, or listen to beyond the staged, plastic “How are we this evening!” the counselor who had whistled supplies, Ben finds himself searching cautiously for the redhead he’d had that unpleasant experience with earlier. He spots him, eventually, standing a little to the right of the counselor at the front of the hall beside the same three kids he’d been sitting with earlier. His back is unnaturally straight and his stance is forced as if he’s proud or anxious. Ben reads both off of him. He wonders what purpose the four of them are serving up there, and is answered soon enough.

After a brief introduction of the other counselors (whose names Ben has already forgotten) and a quick overview of the camp’s rules, the counselor up front gestures to the restless teens behind him and lets them introduce themselves to the kid-packed room. Redhead goes first, announcing himself as “Armitage Hux”, and Ben snorts under his breath at that. He wonders what kind of stuck-up parents you need to be placed into this kind of position, then wonders further what kind of kid you had to be to enjoy it as Armitage, returning back to his original spot proudly, seems to be.

By that ridiculous name alone, Ben wonders if there are in fact worse parents in the world than his own.  
  
  
  
  
Dinner is served not long after, and having eaten everything else on his tray, Ben pokes at the cold lump of unbuttered mashed potatoes remaining with his fork, listening in on the conversations that surround him. There are two girls immediately to his left who know each other through the previous year’s camp and are chattering back and forth in an ever speeding effort to cover the missed time. Further down the table there’s a group of boys, all new to each other but bonding well enough. Earlier, Ben had wanted to join their conversation, but having listened to them talk primarily sports now for almost two hours, he's glad he never tried. Somewhere behind him, Armitage Hux has settled back with his group of “Counselors in Training” (which is a bullshit title if Ben has ever heard one. He doubts they’ll even do much more than fruitlessly try to “lead” the other campers). Ben catches him sometimes from the corner of his eyes, and catches snippets of the English accent Ben learned he pompously carries from his moment on stage as well, but doesn’t dare look directly at him again. Ben remains bitter, but further down, he knows he won’t survive that kind of embarrassment over. Just being here is enough.

It’s not long before there’s a call to clear trays, but before they can settle back into their seats, boys and girls are directed to line up against the opposite walls. Ben, after tossing his tray, shuffles into the boy’s line glumly and watches a pail full of paper slips get passed down, everyone drawing one. The slip Ben draws reads “red”, and Ben waits anxiously to learn its significance. Once the pails reach the end of the line and are recollected, it’s announced the slips correspond to cabin colors and the teams they’ll be representing all of camp. Ben, folding his scrap back and forth over the same crease repeatedly, looks less than hopefully for his bunkmates. He has a sinking suspicion it won’t go over well.  
  
  
  
  
Ben settles into his bunk shivering, his still-wet hair plastered in odd curls to his forehead and soaking his shitty, flat pillow pretty steadily through. He never wants to shower here again, tallying this experience onto a list of the worst in his life, but recognizes, despairingly, that he will have to. Tomorrow night, in fact.

Though he is already in bed, Ben’s other bunkmates aren’t. Just to his left, annoyingly, a pair of legs dangle from the top bunk he hadn’t fought hard enough for, and it’s shaking the entire frame. Beyond those swaying feet, two other boys run laps around the cabin floor, chased by a third who's doing his best to whip them with the belt he’s got folded in his hand. Their shouts get progressively louder, and Ben knows they’re oblivious to the Counselors making rounds through the cabins. He can hear them through the cabin walls if he listens hard enough.

Soon enough, there’s footsteps traveling up the creaking, wooden steps of their own cabin, and Ben sighs, pulling his covers all but over his head in an effort to dodge the oncoming storm as best as he can manage. Ben’s bunkmates, naturally, don’t notice until the cabin door swings open and vaguely familiar, clipped voice announces, “Light’s out!”

Ben’s curiosity wins him over, and subtly as possible he pulls his blanket down to see. Just a few steps from the door, Armitage Hux stands, stance sure as ever and oblivious to Ben. He’s focused instead, impatiently, on the three boys on the floor who have only just stopped running. There’s silence a moment before a slight snigger from one of Ben’s bunkmates erupts into laughter from all three. It’s exactly what Ben had expected.

To Armitage’s credit, he stands his ground, looking altogether unfazed by the event. It’s impressive, if not uncanny. “Light’s go out at 10 pm,” he elaborates, as though the laughter hadn’t happened at all. “Tonight, and all your nights at this camp following, you are expected to be in your bunks by this time. Is this clear?”

Ben briefly forgets the cover of his blankets in favor of getting a better view. Armitage holds authority better than half of the counselors Ben’s encountered so far, but he can’t be much older than him, either. He glances to his bunkmates, and his fingers tighten on his blanket on Armitage’s behalf when he sees their smiles haven’t faltered. The bolder of the trio speaks up after a moment, once the shock of Armitage’s entrance has receded.

“Is this cleah?” He mocks in a cheap imitation of the Counselor in Training’s voice, meant to mimic his accent but far from accurate.

Wide-eyed, Ben glances to Armitage just in time to catch a twitch of contempt pass through his otherwise neutral face. It’s a ripple that begins at his eyebrow and catches his nose and upper lip along the way. Beyond this, he hides his anger surprisingly well.

When Armitage releases a quiet breath from his lips, Ben realizes he’s been holding it, perhaps even counting in his head.

“Lewis, isn’t it?” Armitage replies eventually. The words are phrased as a question, but the tone is assured unlike one. He knows the name is correct, as does Lewis.

Lewis looks, for all the better of him, confused and a good bit wary.

“Were I you, Lewis,” Armitage continues. “I wouldn’t have considered myself in a position to be mocking anyone’s speech. I doubt you’ve mentioned it to these boys yet, or ever will, so I’d be glad to recall the speech impediment you carried up until last summer, at the age of _fourteen_. It’d be a shame to forget such a key piece of your history, would it not be, _Woowis?_ ”

Lewis is rigid, and he’s gone slightly pale. His lips are curled, either around the beginning of a retort, or maybe, based on the sudden color rising to his face, a sob. Neither come. The cabin remains silent until Armitage speaks again.

“As it were however,” he glances to the clock on the wall opposite the door. “It’s 10:05, and as I mentioned you were expected to be in your bunks five minutes ago.” Nobody moves, but Armitage doesn’t seem bothered. “Counselor Tarkin makes his rounds behind me. I only thought it polite to give you some warning.”

At this, the boys unlock, eyeing their bunks but not yet moving. Only Lewis appears unaffected.

“Goodnight Red Cabin.” Armitage finishes in a tone that could almost be considered friendly before exiting.

The moment the cabin door shuts behind him, everyone scrambles for their bunks.

Ben rolls over, never peeling the blanket from his face and replaying what he’d just witnessed over and over in his head until the faces get blurry and he can no longer recall Armitage’s spiteful tremor quite right. He isn’t sure yet what to make of him, only knows that he’s far more curious than afraid. For his tendencies towards trouble, Ben’s mom has always called him “a moth drawn to flame", and recalling the fiery tones of Armitage’s hair as he finally drifts off, Ben thinks, she could be right.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> moodboard for the fic up on my tumblr [here](http://42dicks.tumblr.com/post/156096908495).


	2. the rope swing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> takes them half of camp, but ben and armitage at last interact. 
> 
> heads up for mentions of blood, f-slur (idk how that's even abrieviated tbh, but it's what the British sometimes call their cigarettes), and r-slur. teenagers can be awful, we all know.

  
  
Out on Red Cabin’s porch, the door behind him shut and shielding him from any lingering eyes, Armitage takes a moment to steady himself. He looks out to the dark trees across from the cabin a for a minute, and relishes the slight breeze which passes through them. The air outside is slightly cooler than it was inside the cabin, given the lack of walls and crowded bodies, but it remains hot enough that Hux’s shirt clings to his back. Temperature aside, he already feels heated, wound. He hopes those bloody red blotches which heat his face on occasions like these aren’t showing, but suspects they are. He can feel them, hot up on his cheeks.

It’s a long moment before Armitage can bring himself to move, to will his body forward towards the sanctuary of the cabin which houses himself and the other Counselors in Training. He wonders if his bunkmate, Dopheld, has managed to lay Blue Cabin down himself; hopes so. He doesn’t have the energy to deal with any more insubordination tonight.

Insubordination; a strict term, a military term. This is only summercamp.

Armitage releases the breath he’s been holding and makes a final, resigned effort to calm down.

The camp he passes through now is dark and quieted, vacant save for a few straggling campers returning from the bathrooms and a few Counselors almost done for the night, chatting in groups as they walk. By the time Armitage makes it to his own cabin, he’s mostly succeeded in composing himself again. The relief of returning to it helps, too. It’s the closest he has to home here, and it aids to be back with another sharing his age and title, even if it is only Dopheld.

He, Armitage learns upon greeting him, had had no problem getting Blue Cabin to bed. This is what Armitage had been hoping to hear, and yet, he finds himself feeling almost resentful towards the news, bitter. He suppresses these feelings at the recognition of how irrational he’s acting. He ought to be grateful the job has been done right for once, and that he won’t need to worry about it himself, but he isn’t, not really.

As he listens to Dopheld chatter and gathers his pajamas for a shower, a low, hearty laugh sounds through the wall which divides them from the girls’ half of the cabin. He recognizes the voice as Phasma’s. All the walls are thin at camp; something Armitage had learned early on. It’s useful for eavesdropping, and crucial to be aware of if you’re maintaining any secrets. Their cabin is bisected by one such wall, isolating the sexes, and each half has its own entrance. Recalling how his father had insinuated just hours before how he may take advantage of such a layout, Armitage grimaces.

Dopheld, at the laugh, looks to Armitage with a thin, nervous smile suggesting he seeks a similar bond to whatever Phasma and Susan had discovered. Armitage doesn’t return it. If they were to become friends at this camp, it would have happened already in the many years which they have both spent here. He lacks the energy tonight also, to humor him. Instead, as though oblivious, Armitage throws his towel over his shoulder, tucks his pajamas under his arm, and leaves for the showers without another word.

There, in solitude beneath the freezing stream, he washes the day away.  
  
  
  
  
Monday morning brings with it new but not unfamiliar responsibilities. Armitage, Dopheld, Phasma, and Susan all contribute in rousing campers that are groggy and reluctant after a poor “first night’s sleep.” It takes breakfast for the prior night’s excitement over being at camp to find them all again, but it returns two-fold. It’s not something which Armitage looks forward to handling.

They begin on a Lake Day, an activity that will be repeated every other day as per tradition, as alternated with the girls. The boys, all excitedly gathered on the beach of the lake, have no patience to listen to the rules rattled out to them now. All are eyeing the water, some already whispering about the stunts they intend to pull, and Armitage sighs, watching the Counselor assigned the task drone on with little regard as for whether or not he actually holds his audience’s attention. Armitage does not know if he is dumb, or if he’s simply given up, but at least when the campers are released to the water few rules are broken, and it’s driven in well enough that the rope swing (supported by a failing branch, and meant to have been cut down years ago) isn’t to be touched only one reprimand has to be issued. No one drowns, and no one punches anyone else, so ultimately Armitage considers it a successful trip.

After a morning at the Lake comes lunch, and following lunch comes a shelter building contest. Following basic instructions on rules and techniques for the challenge, Red Cabin, Blue Cabin, and Yellow Cabin (or all cabins assigned to male campers) spend two hours designing their own structure. In the end, Blue Cabin wins. Theirs is a more elegant but ultimately faulty design (the roof wouldn’t keep out or withstand rain and their walls, while attractive, served little for warmth), followed closely by Red Cabin’s sturdy but unappealing fort with a too-small entry. Were Armitage judge, he would have handed it to Red for practicality’s sake, but it isn’t his call. His duty is instead to escort a ten year-old boy to the Nurse after a branch “from outta nowhere!” whips him hard enough across the cheek to draw blood.

The incident is passable as an accident. Armitage as a camper had helped construct many forts himself, knows the calluses and splinters they can give you, and that branches can snap out of line if not woven well enough into a shelter. It is however a combination of the fact that the accident had occurred _after_ the winners were declared, that the boy is from Blue Cabin (the winning team), and the peculiar, sullen, bitter gaze of none other than Ben Solo, a member of Red Cabin, following Armitage as he escorts the injured boy down the trail to the Nurse’s. He does his best to ignore it, aware he lacks the evidence to conclude anything and that pursuing the truth ultimately isn’t worth it, but he remains suspicious, and it peeves him nonetheless.

Dinner comes after a craft activity done indoors. There, Armitage joins the other Counselors in Training at a table that’s become ritual after four meals shared here. Susan gets a word around Dopheld for once, interrupts him in fact, and Phasma snorts. Armitage just eats in silence, wishing for better food but voicing none of his distaste. He’d be spoiled to complain, and his father taught him better than that.

This doesn’t stop the other campers from calling Armitage spoiled regardless. Father would say it’s because he has good genes and an accredited dad, but Armitage begs to differ. His heritage is a factor, certainly, but he knows he also bears certain, unalienable characteristics which drive others from him.

His appearance is one such factor; he’s tall but he’s slight. Too thin of arms, too pale of skin. He’s been called a faggot. He’s been called a doll. Few nicknames are new, and few cut him as they might once have. There are deeper traits, too, that drive away those less shallow; his indifferent demeanor, his sharp tongue. Armitage earns everyone’s disfavor eventually, inevitably, and tries not to take it too personally.

As Lewis leads a bitter tirade of boys against him, their latest jab regarding the log up Armitage’s ass contributing to his stiff posture and even stiffer personality, he consoles himself as he always has; reminding himself he’s better than them, above them, though these days he’s less and less sure that’s true.

There is only one conflict that won’t wash off of him like the others. To an extent, this is because it annoys him, and Armitage has never handled annoyance well, but there’s a degree of fear, also, that makes it impossible to shake. It’s Ben Solo, the stupid, insolent boy whose mom’s mayor of whatever gaudy beachtown he’s from, and his gaze which has through the week trailed Armitage _everywhere_.

Their first encounter, an introduction of sorts over dinner the first night of camp, is Armitage’s fault. Anyone would look up at the sound of their name, even Armitage might, though he’s certain he wouldn’t have looked so bewildered and clueless doing so. Regardless, it was expected, and more or less faultless. No reason for concern, certainly, except that Ben’s eyes _haven’t stopped following him_ since then.

The accusatory stare as Armitage escorted that ten year-old to the Nurse’s Monday is perhaps the most unnerving, but all are bothersome at this point. It would appear, as Armitage has been forced to observe him in return, Ben Solo hardly socializes with anyone. He sits alone, swims alone, crafts alone, every activity spent with his head down or his eyes on Armitage (of all people to target.) Armitage is used to the novelty of his red hair being a factor, can understand a certain level of friction as he is in charge of Ben, still, despite the fact they must be nearly the same age, but no fascination or unsubtle curiosity could extend for days as this has.  
  
These stares of his are boyish, petty. There’s no substance behind them beyond the other’s inability to grasp basic social boundaries, and yet, Armitage cannot help fearing that there could be.

 _Every man bears his secrets_ , Armitage’s father had told him often enough, though as to what secrets he may hold given he’ll spill his life’s accomplishments to any listening ear after a second glass, he can only guess. Armitage knows only his own, ones buried in this very camp, passed between his lips and those of another boy last summer. He’d been careful; as inconspicuous, as cautious, as wary as he could be, going so far as to threaten the other camper against sharing any details of that night, or that they even associated with each other at all. Ben Solo hadn’t been at camp last year, Armitage is certain. There’s no way he could know, and yet-

Armitage can’t shake the feeling Ben suspects _something_.  
  
  
  
  
Friday, as nothing has come yet of it, Armitage elects, at last, to let Ben Solo and his unnerving mannerisms go. It’s been nearly a week of unjustified paranoia, and he’s survived this long without incident.

It’s early afternoon and cool for a Californian summer, cool enough that Armitage leaves the shade today to lay in the sun instead. It’s another Lake Day which he intends to oversee from shore, and as he’s remarkably evaded sunburn thus far (for the most part), he wonders if this is at last the year he will finally earn the tan the older, female acquaintances of his father’s had promised him throughout his life. It’s about time, though he’s more than skeptical.

Out on his towel with the sun warming his bare chest and thighs, Armitage wonders why he doesn’t do this more often. It’s nice, and he feels that after the stress of the first week he’s earned it (the only way he’ll really allow himself to enjoy anything.) His eyes slip shut against the best of him.

He doesn’t nap, not entirely, but drifts over into some warm lull that is, only naturally, interrupted before he can truly enjoy it. He sits up, squinting against the blinding shards of sun glinting cruelly off the lake, and searches bitterly for the source of the shouting which had roused him. With his hand cradled over his brow, he spots it soon enough.

On one end of the spectacle are a group of boys still scattered in a way that suggests they were in the middle of a game. One looks particularly impatient to return to it with how he boredly spins and tosses the ball in his grip. On the other end, more difficult to make out, is the boy responsible for the shouting. He’s among the tallest in the water, and sports dark hair, but the brightness and distance separating him from Armitage make it difficult to discern much else.

It’s his voice; argumentative, aggressive, but ruined by a wavering adolescent tenor which gives him away when he shouts, “You were only pretending to want me in your fucking game in the first place!”

It’s Ben Solo. Armitage is beginning to wonder just who else he could have suspected. Trouble sticks to the boy, trails after him, and Armitage is tired of dealing with it. With the hand that had once protected them from the sun Armitage covers his eyes in second-hand embarrassment. He peers through his fingers however, ultimately, unable to look away should he miss something significant.

“It was shit anyways!” Ben continues, at the same, unnecessarily loud volume. “Who the fuck even plays volleyball without a net!? It’s fucking stupid!”

Catching onto these shouts as well, the two Counselors on the beach rise to interfere, but before they can completely stand Ben Solo removes himself from the situation. He sloshes back towards shore dripping, angry, and with a demeanor that might have been frightening were everyone here not already too aware of his idiocy. His shorts are twisted up around his thighs as he stomps onto the sand, and paired with his childish glower as he wipes his overgrown hair angrily from his forehead, the scene is almost comical.

Armitage decides he is done here, and lays back down.

Ben Solo has resolved the situation for himself, even if it was in the most crude, graceless, and embarrassing manner Armitage has ever witnessed. Regardless, it means that neither he nor the Counselors will need to intervene. As he settles back on top his towel, Armitage squints up at a sky almost painful to view for the intensity of its brightness. He’s just beginning to relax again when an increasingly and unfortunately familiar figure storms nearer to, before slowing just behind him.

Armitage shuts his eyes a moment in something that might have been a prayer.

_Don’t sit there. Don’t sit there. Don’t sit there._

Of course Ben Solo does, setting out his towel by the sounds of it, and Armitage wants to die.

He considers returning to the shade. His skin is growing stiff in a way that suggests that he is (predictably) burning, and he’s grown to be hot enough the unsanitary, ice-cold water of the lake seems appealing. He is, in fact, an excellent swimmer, courtesy of private lessons as a child, but lakes have never held an appeal. They’re gross and murky and full of life, and just what would he do in the water here? Laps would be as inappropriate and awkward as joining the game of volleyball Ben had just fled. (That hasn’t stopped Dopheld, though, who appears to be a referee to the resumed game now himself.) The move would be conspicuous however, with Ben’s eyes no doubt on him as always, and he rather likes it here, in the sun, even with the threat of cooked skin and the sweat that currently pastes his hair behind his ears and to the back of his neck.

He won’t let Ben ruin this, or he’ll do his damned best not to, at least.

Unfortunately, Ben Solo is difficult to ignore even though he is beyond Armitage's line of sight. He’s noisy, going through his camp-supplied drawstring bag for something while cursing under his breath, and shifting constantly even after he’d flopped down with a loud, dejected huff. Every obnoxious sound of his makes Armitage twitch, and Armitage is as far from relaxing now as he’s ever been. He caves when the unmistakable crawl of skin he’s come to associate with Ben suggests his eyes are on him again.

Armitage’s own open, and he stares agitatedly up at the sole branch above him. He breathes in deep before addressing Ben at last, not even bothering to look at him to do so. It’s enough he’s even speaking to him.

“If you’re going to continue to insist on staring at me, you can at least learn to be more subtle about it.”

Ben’s fidgeting stops at this, and Armitage suspects he’ll leave soon, hopes so. He doesn’t anticipate the absurd words which leave him next; an introduction of all things.

“...My name’s Ben,” Ben contributes redundantly.

Armitage barely stifles his exasperated groan, and replies with a blunt “I know.”

“Okay,” Ben finishes, placatingly. He doesn’t sound bothered or put off by the rejection so much as desperate to fill the silence which Armitage wishes to keep. In the very least however, it seems Ben is satisfied at that, as he follows it up with nothing.

Gradually, lured by the renewed peace, Armitage’s eyes slip back closed and he allows his shoulders to drop. He relaxes just in time for Ben to announce, plainly:

“You’re burning.”

Up until now, Armitage has maintained his composure. There is a line to be drawn, as a Counselor in Training, between himself and the campers, and inarguably between himself and Ben Solo, but he abandons it at that those two, outrageous words to leave Ben. Sitting up, he wheels around to utter an incredulous “Excuse me?”

Ben is already looking straight at him. Their eyes meet, and this time Ben doesn’t waver under Armitage's accusatory stare, only stumbles on his words. “You’re- You were- You’ve got more freckles than you did Sunday,” he blurts, and Armitage blinks, “but you’re getting pink.”

Armitage can only stare at that, face heating with what he knows is more than just a response to the sun. His lips curl when he declares, in spite of knowing that he is wrong, “I’m not.”

Ben frowns. His lips part, his expression contorts with a reply that never quite makes it out. He abandons it eventually, and looking far too much like a kicked dog, mutters “Okay,” again before looking away.

 _Okay_ Armitage echoes, mocks in his mind, because it’s the second time Ben’s said it in mere minutes. He levels him with a glare he’s positive could convey his disdain to even the most dense before turning back around.

Ben, as luck would have it, is even denser than Armitage could have imagined.

“Your dad is a counselor here?” He asks after his usual, misleading pause.

“Was,” Armitage replies with a sigh, abandoning all hope of ever relaxing here again.

“Oh,” Ben remarks. “My mom’s mayor of Long Beach. Some people-”

“I know.” Armitage cuts him off for a second time. He doesn’t need to hear any more of this; Dopheld talks about it enough. He wonders if he shouldn’t just set them up with each other, kill two birds with one stone.

Now Armitage is truly considering an escape to the shade. The move wouldn’t be subtle, but what does Ben Solo know of subtlety? In deliberation, he doesn’t move however, so perhaps he deserves it when Ben inevitably pipes up again.

“Why don’t you swim?”

Armitage scans both the lake and beach in the futile hope that there will be someone around to rescue him from this nonsense. He briefly considers Dopheld, watching as he stutters over an attempt to call out foul play. He’s not necessarily a preferable conversational partner, but dismiss him enough times and he’d eventually catch the hint - something Ben had never learned.

Aggravated, apathetic, and more annoyed by the minute, Armitage snaps. His professionality was lost the moment he’d decided to speak to Ben, anyways. “Why are you incapable of shutting up?”

It doesn’t have the effect Armitage had hoped for.

Though Ben quiets, he doesn’t look much offended by the comment. Instead, he bears a countenance almost pitying that is lost behind his hair when he turns away at last. With a small stick, Ben appears to ignore him, tracing abstract designs into the sand instead.

Armitage bristles.

Ben, Armitage observes, never bothered to dry or wring out his hair. Lake water drips steadily from the thick, dark strands onto the sand, and rolls in heavy rivulets down his back. As he stares at his shirtless form, Armitage notes how disjointedly large Ben is, though not for the first time. He’s a crudely rendered disjunction of parts not entirely unappealing to look at (when his mouth is shut, at least.) Armitage, once aware of these thoughts, choses to blame them on the heat.

“They talk about you, you know.” Ben mutters eventually, his mouth up against his knee the way he’s crouched on his towel now and muffling some of his voice.

Sharing his father’s detest for mumbling, Armitage clenches his jaw and refrains from snapping at Ben to speak up. He doesn’t need to hear his stupid remarks any louder. There is something else too, though, which agitates Armitage at his words, something latent. He’s realized now just _why_ Ben is speaking to him, why he is so adamant on continuing this conversation. For some reason, absurdly, Ben Solo _pities_ him.

Armitage could laugh.

“They talk plenty about you, too,” he says instead, and it isn’t a lie. There is not a meal at this camp which passes without a joke or comment towards Ben Solo and his painful mannerisms.

“I know,” Ben responds. He’s still muttering.

Armitage has begun to grind his teeth unconsciously. He looks down to observe his own hands out of reluctance to view the other. Ben Solo _pities_ him. It’s a ridiculous, _insulting_ concept.

Ben’s eyes, Armitage can tell, remain shyly on him though he continues to play in the sand. He knows he’s about to say _something_ , but he’s caught entirely off guard when the boy says, candidly, after a long time spent looking at Armitage: “You’re beautiful.”

“I’m _what?_ ” Armitage chokes, face heating as he gapes at the other boy. He’s searching the insincerity of his observation, the joke, and when he cannot find that, the motive. Ben, however, seems to have taken the opportunity to, rather than face the repercussions of his words, fold further in on himself, effectively concealing most of his face behind his knee now. The tips of his ears, peering through his sodden hair, are pink.

Armitage stares in disbelief, and Ben offers no explanation. They sit like this for a long time.

It is Ben, first, who moves, lifting his head just enough to look at him again. His eyes settle on his cheeks which Armitage can feel are blazing red.

Armitage has grown beyond tired of having Ben Solo’s stupid eyes on him.

“You’re still-” Ben begins, but whatever he intends to finish that with; burning, beautiful, blushing, Armitage won’t let him.

“Ben,” He interjects, cold. “The most beneficial thing you could _ever_ hope to do for me is to throw yourself off of that broken rope swing behind me. Now, open your mouth to speak to me again and I’ll be quick to find a reason to have you written up.”

Ben’s mouth never quite makes it shut. His eyes are wide, body frozen, and at last he seems impacted by Armitage’s efforts to get rid of him. Though his method has not been the most admirable, he’s gotten through to Ben, and he doubts the camper has the nerve to tell on him. He’s got that much common sense, at least. Ben would leave any second now, and Armitage could be free of him at last.

As Ben rises, Armitage assumes that time is now and looks on moderately pleased. He wonders why Ben has made no move yet to collect his bag or towel, and wonders if he’s made him upset enough to leave them both behind. He has, if the way Ben’s face has shifted from stunned, to sullen, to resentful in the minute that’s passed since Armitage’s threat is any indication. It isn’t until he recognizes that Ben’s impassioned gaze is, instead of on him, fixed on something just beyond Armitage that he pieces it together.

Armitage stares. Ben can’t possibly be serious, couldn’t _actually_ be considering doing what Armitage thinks he is….

After wrestling through some flawed rationale, Ben unlocks, and begins to walk, unfalteringly, just where Armitage had suspected he would. He steps around him and his towel now as though oblivious to their presence, and Armitage can only watch as he passes, turning his head to follow this trainwreck of a boy as he heads single-mindedly for the rope swing.

Briefly, Armitage glances to the two Counselors on shore. They’re absorbed in conversation with each other and entirely oblivious to the plight unfolding just to their left. He then returns his gaze to Ben Solo, who is directly under the rope now. Most campers can’t reach it, eliminating many potential conflicts outright, but height is no challenge of Ben’s, and he reaches up now to test the rope’s give with his hand.

Armitage supposes himself even worse than the two complacent Counselors on shore. He’s not oblivious, but rather very aware of the danger just before him, and yet he cannot bring himself to stop it, utterly transfixed as Ben places another hand on the rope, tightens his grip, and walks it backwards. It’s as he’s taken the rope back as far as it can go from the small cliff overlooking the lake that something of hesitation finally catches him.

It’s not enough to stop him, however.

Ben hoists himself up a little higher, grips the rope a little tighter, then wavers on his toes at the edge of something monumentally foolish. He looks at last to Armitage, _You asked for this_ written in a sort of careless, bitter calm across his features. After dealing Armitage the appropriate wound, he turns back to the task at hand. Shoulders rising with a breath Armitage cannot think to take, Ben steadies himself, then sprints full speed for the cliff.

To Ben’s credit, the leap is marvelous. Time slows as his feet leave the ground and the boy glides through the air, weightless. There is a second for which Armitage thinks he may actually pull this off unscathed. Then, just before Ben can release the rope to complete his jump, a dreadful crack rings through the air and the massive branch above him gives.

It is at this sound all those previously oblivious to the event turn to look up. Campers a distance away in the lake point and shout as the branch chases Ben down into the water. The two Counselors on shore rise at the splash, recalling too late there is an actual reason to supervise.

Armitage is running for the lake before he can even think to blink, bringing himself to action at last, but perhaps too late. He’s chest deep in the cold, murky water by the time the Counselors even make it to the shore.

It’s been twenty seconds now, and still Ben hasn’t surfaced.

Twenty-five.

Thirty.

Thirty-five.

Armitage steels himself, sucking in a stuttered breath, and dives under.

The shock of the cold water hits him fully now that he’s submerged his face and spurs his still limbs into action. He propels himself deeper into the lake, and after a moment spent blind forces himself to open his eyes. He’s never done so before underwater, his father’s warnings of the infections, the parasites it could lead to ingrained deep, but he does now.

The water is a dull green and clouded. It is difficult to see much further than an arm’s length, but by the bits of bark, twigs, and leaves swirling around him, Armitage knows he’s close.

Distantly, he can hear muffled shouts through the water, the muted splashes of more bodies wading in. The Counselors are somewhere behind him now, calling after him and Ben Solo both. Armitage ignores them. Pressing further still into the lake, he eventually spots the raw, jagged end of the branch Ben had taken down with him. He swims alongside it, finding it to be much larger than it had seemed from so high up before.

Before Ben himself, Armitage spots his blood. It’s stark against the natural greens and browns of the lake, and wafts in foreboding little swirls above his head, perilous and red. His hair drifts weightless under the cloud, and the boy himself is pinned by his shoulders face down beneath the branch.

Somewhere, removed from himself, terror floods Armitage at the sight, at his doing. Ben is still - unconscious, or perhaps even drowned. It takes a second too long for Armitage’s conscious mind, his rational mind to override this fear, and drive him to dislodge the branch.

His efforts accomplish little.

Armitage wrestles fruitlessly with the limb. His lungs are beginning to ache, pressuring him to inhale, and the muscles of his chest and arms burn as he tries first shoving, then pulling at the branch. He has never been strong. He’d scraped by in his every gym class out of a pure determination to maintain his grades, but he’d never built the muscles of some of his peers.

 _Weak,_ his father’s voice echoes through his mind clear. Armitage screws his eyes shut as though to ward it off. He debates surrendering, returning to the surface for air and leaving Ben to fate and time and the competence of the Counselors nearing them now, but then a newer memory surfaces, speaks in Ben’s voice.

_Beautiful._

Armitage opens his eyes again, and glancing back down to Ben’s limp and leaden form summons a new determination. He repositions his hands on the branch, then braces himself against the sandy floor of the lake to give it one final tug. By desperation and the aid of the water both he just manages to get it over Ben’s head before dropping it again. The branch hits the sand again with a deadened thump.

Armitage pulls at Ben until he can position himself under the larger boy and wrap both of his arms around his own shoulders. Then, with the last of his strength and the last of his breath, Armitage drags them both to the surface.

As he breaks the water, Armitage sucks in a wild breath, but a small wave resulting from all the movement crashes over his face before he can complete it. He chokes, swallowing too much of the water, and slips too easily back under with the deadweight of Ben still pulling him down. It takes several, grueling kicks before his feet strike sand and he is in shallow enough of water to stand. Resurfacing, he sucks in air greedily, coughing more than breathing, for the first few seconds, but breathing nonetheless. Ben, behind him, has yet to make a single sound.

In seconds there are the solid arms of the Counselors surrounding them both, guiding them back toward shore. As they reach even shallower water, Ben is taken from him and laid out carefully on the sand of the beach. Armitage, stumbling slowly to the shore on his own unsteady legs, watches from the background, still struggling to catch his breath as a scene once so under his control finds him powerless.

Hair obscures most of Ben’s face, but Armitage can still see how pale he’s grown, the purple, almost blue tint to his lips, and the blood still streaming from somewhere near his temple, blurred semi-transparent by the water. He still isn’t breathing, and at the sight, pinned by his own guilt, Armitage cannot move.

There is one Counselor crouched over Ben. He rests a head on his chest and listens a moment before moving back enough to drive two carefully positioned hands into his stomach. At the blow, Ben sputters to life almost immediately, and rolls onto his side to cough up a lungful of water.

Armitage’s knees go weak with relief.

He startles when a hand claps over his own shoulder; the second Counselor on duty. As both observe the scene before them, he congratulates Armitage on his bravery, suspecting nothing. Armitage feels ill.

When Armitage doesn’t respond, he’s asked if he’s alright. He forces a nod, eyes still on Ben who’s being helped to his feet now. Ben’s breathing, conscious, but blood continues to run down his face from a wound unseen. It’s darker, thicker now without the water present to wash it away.

“I’d like to escort him to the Nurse,” Armitage announces, suddenly. His eyes haven’t left Ben to even look at the Counselor he addresses now.

“Are you sure you’re up for that? Look a bit like you might be needing a trip down there yourself,” the Counselor responds. It’s patronizing, oblivious. “Rough bit you just put yourself there...”

Armitage doesn’t have time for this.

“Yes,” he insists, impatient. He moves forwards without permission to aid the Counselor steadying Ben, and he isn’t stopped.

The Counselor beside Ben has one of the boy’s arms around his shoulder, and Armitage loops the other around his own. He’s tense at first, the act of contact entirely different now that the other is conscious, but Ben hardly seems to react. His face remains pointed at the ground, his breath ragged and uneven, and he looks as though he might throw up.

Halfway down the trail to the Nurse’s Ben Solo doubles over and does just that. It’s mostly water, but it takes everything in Armitage’s power not to recoil.

He deserves this, he thinks miserably.

Ben did not.

Regret is foreign to Armitage, and settles poorly in his stomach.  
  
  
  
  
They lay Ben out on the medical cot in the Nurse’s Cabin and Armitage waits in the room’s only chair, useless. Due to the constant swarm of worried bodies drifting in and out of the room, he can barely even see Ben. Murmurs, passed between the Nurse and several Counselors (many of whom hadn’t even been present at the time of the accident) are of a concussion. When the Nurse finally drops the washcloth she’d been using to clean up Ben’s face aside, it’s covered in red.

It’s nearly half an hour of fussing before the room clears enough for Armitage to catch a glimpse of Ben, but when the Nurse steps out, too, to find Ben’s emergency contacts, they’re alone in the room at last.

Ben’s back is to Armitage the way he lay across the cot. Between his shoulders, the skin is red and raw, scraped by the branch which had pinned him to the lake floor. It’s a looming reminder of Armitage’s crimes. With each breath Ben takes, his shoulders rise and fall, and Armitage watches, wondering what he’s thinking now, and, more specifically, what he thinks of him, of this.

He shouldn’t care.

The rational half of Armitage reasons that Ben is the one who took up the rope in the end, that no blame can be cast on himself, but this doesn’t absolve any of his guilt. In the silence to persist between them in the small room, Armitage’s stomach chews an angry hole through itself.

By the time Ben rolls over, Armitage is ready to accept any blow he deals, if only he’d throw it already. He isn’t prepared, however, for the benign expression Ben wears instead, bereft of any malice or resentment.

Ben’s eyes are soft and a little unfocused as he looks to Armitage, and Armitage’s stomach all but crawls out through his throat when he’s offered a small, disarming smile of all things.

Armitage’s lips part to say _something_ , be it an apology or a threat, but nothing comes out. Instead, he watches the other sit up slowly while wincing, as still and useless as he’d been when Ben had taken up the rope in the first place.

Ben, once upright, peels the tissue he’d been holding to his forehead per the Nurse’s instruction away to inspect it. He turns the crumpled thing over in his hands while Armitage’s eyes dart to his forehead. The gash there, beading only slightly with the tissue gone, looks significantly less threatening without all the blood.

“She says I might be concussed,” Ben says eventually, breaking the silence. His words are slightly thick on his tongue.

Armitage hesitates to respond, uncertain just how to react in the absence of the assault he’d anticipated. There’s the possibility Ben could be luring him into a false safety, waiting to round on him later when his guard is down and he says something damnable, or that he truly bears no grudge, but it’s hard to believe the latter could be true for anyone in his shoes, let alone Ben Solo who had just an hour before thrown a fit over a perceived misjustice in a game of volleyball. Armitage thus errs on the side of caution.

“You sound it.” He hazards.

Ben shakes his head, then opens his mouth to reveal bloody teeth and a nicked and swollen tongue. “Bih my houngue,” he remarks, unnecessarily.

Armitage grimaces in disgust.

“You should mention that to the Nurse.” He says stiffly. The room falls quiet once more.

Just outside the door, the Nurse speaks flusteredly into the phone positioned on a table there. “Yes, Mrs. Solo- Oh! Sorry about that, Mrs. Organa-”

Ben appears to retreat in on himself at the name. Shoulders hunched, he picks at the tissue in his hands, tearing off small bits, balling them, then letting them fall to the floor. It’s unsanitary, to say the least.

“They’re going to send me home,” he mutters, staring at his feet. They’re bare.

Both of theirs are.

“Do you not want to go?” Armitage asks, eyebrow raised. He realizes that this is the most conversational he has ever been with Ben (excluding the time he’d unintentionally encouraged the act that might have caused his death.)

Ben says nothing, his feet swaying anxiously back and forth. After a moment he looks up again, seeming as though he’s about to speak, but the Nurse comes into the room just then with the phone to her ear, and Armitage never finds out what he intended to say.

“Yes Ma’am, of course. He’s right here.” The Nurse says into the thing before passing it on to Ben. The long, curling cord of it divides the small room.

Ben looks wide-eyed to Armitage for help, but Armitage can do nothing for him this time around, even if by extension this is his fault as well. He only stares back, hoping to somehow, silently convey some of his remorse.

Recognizing he’s as alone in this act as he’s been in everything else, Ben swallows hard and then takes up the phone. He visibly braces himself as he presses it to his ear, and at the immediate onslaught of angry and concerned words to follow his meek “Hi, Mom,” Armitage understands why.

Armitage can’t actually make out any of what Ben’s mother says, only patches of her tone, but it’s more than enough to gather the intent of it. Ben’s voice, which only escalates in volume as the call progresses, tells the other half of the story.

“No- Mom… _Mom_ , I’m fine… I’m fine!... The drive up here… I want to stay… I’m not- No, I’m not- I’m not slurring mom!... I bit my tongue… I said I bit my tongue… Yes…. No, just- put Dad on the phone? No… Please Mom…. Yes. Yes. _Yes Mom_ , I swear… It’s fine. I’m fine… Yes really... Love you too… _Really_... I want to stay... Yes I’m sure… Yes… Yeah, okay… Okay… _Okay Mom_... Love you too… Yeah, here she is.”

Ben passes the phone back to the Nurse, who has stood in the room for the entire call. She casts him a skeptical glance before accepting it, then out in the lobby addresses Ben’s mother again. Both Ben and Armitage listen in as she attempts another argument towards sending Ben home.

“Yes, now I understand what he told you but you have to understand, Mrs. Organa, that boys try to pull this sort of ‘tough act’ all the time…”

Ben, trodden, looks down again.

Several minutes pass before the Nurse bids Ben’s mother a resigned goodbye and hangs up the phone, but finished now, she steps back into the room to wash her hands and pull on a fresh pair of gloves.

“Well Solo,” She announces, stepping back in front of Ben and plucking the ratty tissue from his grip to throw it out. “It appears you’re staying. Your mother insisted.” Her tone is slightly accusatory as she tends to Ben’s cut, applying first an ointment and then butterfly stitches, but her touches remain gentle, impartial. Armitage watches Ben’s shoulders sag with relief at the news.

The nurse pulls a small flashlight from the counter, flicking it on to observe Ben’s eyes for the second time this afternoon. She continues, “Still don’t seem concussed, though we’ll need to keep an eye on it. Water must have slowed that branch down, huh?” She has Ben turn around next so she can clean up his back. “Really wish you’d’ve have gone home, but it seems I’ve been outvoted.” She finishes up, offering Ben a small smile, then pats him gently on an uninjured shoulder.

Ben turns carefully back around. His gaze finds Armitage’s again, and there’s something of a renewed sparkle in his eyes, a hope. Seeing Armitage appears to jog his memory, too, as just before the Nurse can leave, he blurts that he “bit his tongue, too.” When he shows her the bloody mess hidden behind his lips, she sighs and mutters something about “boys” before moving to tend to this wound, too.

For his endeavors, and also to treat the swelling, Ben receives a popsicle from a small freezer in the lobby before the Nurse steps out for good. She’s off to file some paperwork Armitage suspects has to do with the accident. She doesn’t press either of them to leave just yet.

For a long while, there is only the sound of Ben sucking on his perversely purple popsicle, and, more distantly, the Nurse scribbling in pen. Armitage refuses to look at Ben after he catches himself cataloguing his lips for a few seconds too long. They’re red and plump from both the swelling and cold, and shiny, stained purple in parts by the juice.

It doesn’t take long of listening to him eating the thing for Armitage’s annoyance with Ben to resurface. He’s beginning to wish the branch had kept him unconscious if only for a little longer.

Ben pipes up eventually with a frustratingly vague and indecipherable “Did you like it?” spoken between sucks at his popsicle. Armitage reels for context.

“What?” he asks, entirely baffled. He dares to look up again and catches Ben looking almost smug.

“The jump,” he clarifies, then breaks off the tip of his popsicle with his teeth. Armitage grimaces as he chews it before swallowing. “Was it what you wanted?”

“Fuck Ben, are you mad? Of course it wasn’t!”

Ben raises an amused brow at this and Armitage realizes too late now that Ben had only intended to fluster him. The severity of everything appears still not to have touched him. Perhaps he _is_ concussed.

Armitage continues, even with the knowledge that he’s playing into Ben’s poor idea of a laugh. “You might have bloody drowned Ben! The Nurse may be, but I’m still not convinced the branch didn’t permanently cripple your brain!”

The small grin Ben wears now as he returns to his popsicle drives Armitage up the wall.

“You saved me,” Ben comments.

Armitage goes red.

“I didn’t!” He argues, irrationally, then retracts it “Okay, blimey, I did, but what else should I have done, Ben? _Let_ you drown?” He’s babbling, now, and aware of it, but he remains caught up in the _fear_ he’d felt as Ben had plummeted, as Armitage had spotted his body there at the bottom of the lake. “I ought have, with all the crud you’re pulling now!”

“Hux,” Ben interrupts softly, his smile starting to fade.

Armitage slows and recognizes belatedly how his eyes have begun to sting, how his teeth ache with how tightly he’s holding his jaw.

“Armitage,” He corrects, his voice on the edge of raw.

Ben, upon hearing this, looks genuinely remorseful towards his mistake, and Armitage hates it.

“Sorry,” Ben laments, “it was just what the others call you. I thought…”

He trails off and Armitage sighs, wondering, although he _knows_ , just how the hell he ended up here.

“They’re referencing my father,” he replies. It’s both true and it isn’t. They’re referencing Armitage’s shared characteristics with the man, present no matter what efforts Armitage makes to curb them.

“Do you like him?” Ben asks, and Armitage stares, wondering just who gave him his poor conversational skills. His mother _is_ a politician, is she not?

He struggles a moment on a reply. _Useless_.

“Of course,” he answers, tensely. He’s eager to abandon the topic.

Ben looks doubtful, and looks for a moment as though he’s going to press the subject further. Armitage braces himself, but then, blessedly, Ben chooses to talk about himself instead.

“My dad doesn’t really understand me. We argue a lot. I guess I still like him, though.”

 _I don’t really understand you either,_ Armitage thinks, but manages only an “Oh.”

The phone outside in the lobby rings. Neither of them reacts until the Nurse, after having answered it herself, enters to pass the call onto Ben. “It’s your… Cousin.” She elaborates.

Armitage wonders over the pause.

Ben’s face, previously tense, almost concentrative on the subject of his father, softens immediately. He takes the phone far more eagerly than he had for his mom, then presses it to his ear. “Hey Rey,” He begins, then smiles fully, unreservedly. Armitage stares.

The conversation Ben carries now is a world different from the one he had held with his mother. He’s… sweet, in a manner Armitage hadn’t known him capable of, eyes lit with a genuine, obvious delight. He tells a censored version of the day’s events after being goaded to, and mentions nothing of Armitage’s role in it all. He instead claims himself simply “stupid as always,” and this appears to be accepted. It’s a relief, for now, but Armitage is left to wonder if his part in the accident will remain unheard by the other campers, the Counselors as well.

Ben proceeds to ask “Rey” about her week next. Though Armitage cannot fathom what could be so engaging in the life of a little girl, Ben hangs onto every word. Armitage has never cared so much for anyone. He wonders, silently as he listens, if this is what it is like to have a sibling. He knows this Rey is something different to Ben, biologically, but they’re interacting just the same.

Dopheld appears while Ben is still on the phone, carrying with him two camp bags. They’re Ben’s and his own, Armitage realizes. After a wary look towards Ben, Dopheld passes one of them on to Armitage. “I… think this one’s yours,” he mutters. “Didn’t look inside, though,” he quickly amends.

Armitage takes the bag, then checks inside, confirming it’s his. Drawing it shut again, he thanks Dopheld and then watches him attempt the same exchange with Ben.

“These are uh…” Dopheld falters as Ben glares at him for the interuption, stuttering through his movements and words both. “Your clothes.” He drops the bag lamely beside Ben after his efforts to pass it to him are ignored, then leaves the room as fast as he can manage without outright running. He stops in the lobby just before passing, and turns back, remembering something. “Oh, Hux! We’ll uh, grab you a tray.”

Armitage nods, and Dopheld, assured, leaves. Armitage looks next to Ben, who has just finished on the phone and has risen to hang it up himself.

“Was that entirely necessary?” He asks, referring to his behavior just moments before.

Ben shrugs, then returns to his bag to rummage through it.

Armitage sighs.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Ben shivers, shirtless, with his back to Armitage and his eyes on the tee shirt he holds in his hands. He hasn’t dried his hair yet, and doesn’t plan to at this point, but the draft of the room paired with his still wet hair sends goosebumps down along his spine. There’s the fact that he’s changing in the same room as Armitage, too, even if they are facing opposite walls.

He pulls his shirt on carefully, doing his best not to mess up the new bandage taped to his forehead (even if it’s getting replaced after his shower tonight) and not to catch on any of the fresh scabs covering his back. Once it’s on he waits, staring boredly at the cot in front of him.

Ben could turn around now, if he wanted. He’s 90% positive Armitage has finished changing, too, but he doesn’t want to risk his reaction if he turns around too soon and spots something he shouldn’t. He’s done his very best to appeal to Armitage so far, almost getting himself sent home from the camp in the process. He doesn’t want to ruin it now. Even still, the brief limbo they’d found after Armitage had pulled him from the lake must be ending already, because Armitage wants little to do with him again.

“You can turn around already,” Armitage snaps soon enough, annoyed as though Ben was supposed to have responded to some unspoken cue. Ben, aware Armitage would be upset with him whether he’d turned around too early or too late, only obeys, glad he'd chosen the latter and turning carefully now. He risks a glance towards the other. 

The heavy yellow of the camp tee shirt looks terrible on Armitage, casting the wrong color onto his pale skin. It’s more than the color which bothers Ben, however. There is something else lost with the return of his shirt, something personal, intimate - another side of Armitage. He holds himself differently now, clothed, though Ben, having seen many layers of the Counselor in Training today, know it’s all an act. He had even before Armitage had shown any other part of himself.

All the same, just because Ben knows what Armitage is doing, and why, doesn’t make it hurt any less as he divorces himself from Ben before they’re seen by the other campers.  
  
  
  
  
They arrive at the Dining Hall together, but don’t stay this way for long.

Though they enter quietly, stares quickly descend on them both. Ben keeps his head down, and heads for the empty food line, but Armitage doesn’t follow. He goes, instead, straight to the table he has always sat at, joining the other stuck up Counselors in Training there. As Dopheld had promised, they already have a tray for him. While Ben waits for the one cook left in the cafeteria to bring him a warm hotdog, since half the food’s been put up already, he wonders where he's going to sit.

Ben is used to getting to the dining hall early, taking advantage of the time other campers waste walking too slowly with their friends to steal himself a corner seat. Tonight, however, the hall is already full and it’s hard to spot an empty seat at all, let alone one isolated enough from the other campers for his comfort. Ben finds himself dreading the moment he receives his food, recognizing that the second he does he’ll be out of excuses to keep standing here instead.

After he’s finally passed his hotdog, Ben grips his tray with white knuckles and walks stiffly down the last row between tables and the wall. Eyes follow him, several campers turning to look as he passes, and it’s impossible to ignore. In his eagerness to get out of the spotlight, he lowers his standards and plops into the nearest bench that will fit him.

As he settles, the campers on either side of Ben scoot unsubtly away. He’s fine with this. It gives him some of the space he’d been looking for in the first place. Head down, and hair blocking most of his face from view, Ben does his best to make this dinner bearable by taking a giant bite of his hotdog. It tastes slightly off - too greasy, and not much like beef, but Ben’s starved and doesn’t care.

Ben tackles his corn next, and then his milk. Full, but out of ways to occupy himself with all these eyes still on him, Ben ventures to try his broccoli. It’s thick and rubbery, squealing between his teeth every time he chews, but it’s something to keep him busy. He eats it miserably, and bites harder than necessary into his next piece as the first of the rumors regarding his stunt catch his ears.

“You think he’s retarded, dude?” Asks a boy somewhere to Ben’s left.

“I mean everyone knew not to get on the swing? That was established, like, day one? It’s his fault.” Declares a girl in a separate conversation behind him.

“You think someone dared him?” A third voice contributes.

“Nah, who’d even talk to him?” A fourth jokes.

Ben spears his fork through a third piece of broccoli, striking the tray too hard.

“Charles told me you could see a piece of his skull through the cut.”

“No way, dude.”

“Did you see him cry? I saw tears man, swear.”

Ben chews spitefully on this piece, even if the taste makes him gag.

“You think his mommy’s going to pick him back up?”

“Hope so, don’t need our cabin losing any more points over more shit like that.”

Ben swallows with a shudder, then forks yet another piece. The last two comments had come from his own bunkmates. He recognizes their voices, but doesn’t remember their names. He isn’t surprised.

He only really tenses when Armitage is brought up.

“Did you see little Hux go in after him? He looked scared.”

“Nah, he looked sick. I’d be too, if I had to touch him.”

It’s at this Ben finally snaps, slamming his fist down onto the table with his fork still in his grip. The surrounding tables quiet. He wheels around in search of the boy who’d made the comment, and spots him quickly enough.

He’s a sneering thing behind Ben, and initially startled. Soon however, he’s smirking at Ben’s reaction, then laughing, unthreatened. The rest of his table echoes him. 

Ben, humiliated, glances desperately to Armitage who sits just two tables down. Armitage, who Ben discovers already staring, ducks from sight the moment their eyes meet.  
  
  
  
  
With a heavy thump and a sigh, Ben throws himself onto his bunk. He grimaces as the move upsets forgotten bruises from his run-in with the tree branch.

Unlike Armitage, Ben doesn’t have the luxury of brushing off the ordeal or pretending that it hadn’t happened.

Ben’s bunkmates, after begging he tell them why he’d jumped, or to at least remove his bandage so they could look, eventually grow bored of the subject and let him be. Though they enter their bunks later than he has, they fall asleep sooner, and Ben is left awake and alone with his thoughts.

His mind drifts back to what had happened at dinner, the way Armitage had shied from Ben’s call for help even after everything. Ben wonders if he’ll ever get Armitage to open up, and he wonders, bitterly, why the fuck he even bothers. As tears rise, annoyingly, in his eyes, he digs his nails hard into his palms to ward them off, and wonders why he’d even stayed.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> per tradition, there's a moodboard for this chapter up on my [tumblr](http://42dicks.tumblr.com/post/157077299585).
> 
> EDIT:
> 
> [now with art!](http://pembroke.tumblr.com/post/160561983962/a-scene-from-the-fic-oh-is-it-love-by-42dicks) it's an absolutely gorgeous commission done by pembroke, and an incredible present from [kyluxtrashcompactor](http://kyluxtrashcompactor.tumblr.com/), so go check it out!


	3. the scavenger hunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, a few things to say
> 
> first off, I was absolutely blown away by the response the last chapter received. thank you to everyone who kudosed, commented, or subscribed, and a special thanks to those few of you who recced this fic. I wouldn't be here without you. 
> 
> second, sorry for how long this took. several factors contributed to the delay, mostly insecurity, but I am back now (and chapter #1 has been rewritten a bit)
> 
> third, I broke this chapter in half, bringing the new total to 8 chapters, lmao. It was a 12k beast, so it's been divided, and this way also I can have an update out for you sooner. chapter #4 is nearly done, as well. 
> 
> that's all, for now. no warnings I can think of for this chapter except that it mentions a dead, hypothetical pet fish.

  
  
Against the chill of dawn Ben hunches over himself, long legs dangling from the medical cot while his palms smooth up and down his arms in an effort to warm up. He’s dry, and has his shirt on this time; both of these things count for something, but the Nurse’s has always been chilly both in atmosphere and climate, and still shrugging off sleep and the warmth of the covers he’d slept beneath last night he’s not as warm as he knows he will be come this afternoon. Once the sun rises fully and the summer’s heat beats on him once more, Ben knows he’ll be missing the cold. Right now however, he just misses bed.

Ben hasn’t eaten breakfast yet, and sits currently on the same cot he’d been laid out on last afternoon, atop a long sheet of white, waxy paper he hates. It crinkles with every shift he makes, announcing his movements to the room, and it’s uncomfortable, carries the same clinical stiffness of any doctor’s. Before Ben, the Nurse stands, and while he braces himself, fingers digging into the table’s cushion, she works a delicate finger under the bandage she’d taped on the night before. The tape’s adhesive clings to his skin just like a band-aid worn too long, and the bandage itself has half-healed to his cut, making its removal an uncomfortable process. The tape takes with it a few strands of his dark hair as well, and he sags with relief once it’s finally off him. The worst part is over. All that’s left now is a painless ointment, and the application of a fresh bandage.

For these steps, Ben sits with his eyes shut. He’s exhausted, having slept poorly the night before, and misses his own bed, misses home. He wonders if he starts faking the symptoms of a concussion now if he could make it out of this shitty camp before the scavenger hunt scheduled this afternoon. Having chosen to stay yesterday was a mistake, and every passing hour Ben regrets it more and more.

Out in the lobby, the door leading outside squeaks open. Foreign footsteps travel over wood to the room where he sits now, and reluctantly, Ben cracks open an eye. He peers around the hand dabbing a triple-antibiotic on his forehead to spot the visitor, and frowns immediately at who he discovers standing in the doorway.

Sour-faced, impatient, and sunburnt Armitage Hux hovers, his efforts not to look at Ben conspicuous. When the Nurse turns to him, spotting him a few seconds after he’s arrived, his face colors a shade redder than his burn already pigments it, and he announces, quickly “I need aloe.” His voice is uncharacteristically lowered, below its usual, proud volume.

Ben scowls as the Nurse gives Armitage a once over, her hands abandoning him at once. She tsks at the sight of the Counselor in Training, who stands there, painfully pink, and Ben has to bite down a laugh when she affirms, sympathetically, “Oh darling, you sure do.” She turns and retrieves a clear bottle of gel from the cabinet next to the sink, but hesitates just before passing it to Armitage. Her grip tightens slightly on the bottle when she asks “I thought your dad had mentioned packing you some sunscreen? You’ve always burned _so_ easy...”

Unable to stifle the snort which bubbles this time, Ben claps a hand over his mouth to muffle the noise, though he doesn’t try as hard as he could have and Armitage hears him anyways. Before returning his attention to the Nurse, he shoots Ben a sharp glare then replies, tensely “It’s a new brand; doesn’t work as well.” His voice is level, his eye contact with the Nurse unwavering, but Ben can tell easily that he’s lying.

With a preoccupied “Hm,” the Nurse accepts his excuse, though Ben can’t tell whether or not she actually believes him. She relinquishes the bottle regardless, then stops by the trashcan to toss her gloves. “Well,” she begins, still addressing Armitage. “You can go ahead and put that on in here; you’re both boys. Give it a moment to soak before putting your clothes back on. I’m sure you know the drill.” She smiles warmly, then with a careful hand on his shoulder guides Armitage from the doorway so she can pass through. From the hall, her voice trails off “I’ve got to grab Ben another bandage from the back. We’ve been through so many this week...” She’s soon out of sight, and then the pair are alone in the room, under different circumstances but not for the first time.

After a moment of deliberation, Armitage shuffles reluctantly further in. He looks miserable, and the still bitter part of Ben seeking retribution for what had happened last night feels glad. Armitage turns, and with his back to Ben peels off his shirt. He doesn’t ask him to turn around this time, and so Ben watches subtly from his perch on the table. Armitage’s shoulders, soon revealed, are a bright, angry red worse than his face, and it’s clear that the burn has caught patches of his pale arms and thighs, too.

Though Ben cringes in sympathy, after watching the Counselor in Training gingerly rub the gel into his skin for a few minutes he can’t resist muttering “I told you so.” Armitage hadn’t looked nearly as pink under the sun yesterday but Ben had, from a combination of the other’s milky complexion and his own experience, seen it coming.

At the comment Armitage stills a second, suffering some internal debate, then with a renewed furrow in his brows growls out a quiet “Shut up.”

Ben heeds this for a little while, dismissing the remark with a shrug, and tears a strip of paper from the table as he waits for the Nurse to return. He folds the long, vaguely triangular strip like an accordion in his hands, plays with it a bit, then flattens it again, deciding on a new pattern. He’d heard once that you can only fold a piece of paper in half seven times, but he’s convinced still that one of these days, with enough force, he’ll manage eight. It’s clear quickly that today, with this particular piece of paper, it isn’t going to happen. (One day though, under better conditions…) The scrap at least keeps Ben’s hands occupied, and his eyes for the most part off Armitage who has finished with his face and shoulders and is smearing the clear, sticky gel over his chest now. It glistens some beneath the faintly buzzing, bright light overhead.

Though his own skin often gets stiff and tender in the summer months, Ben himself doesn’t full-out burn so easily, usually tanning instead. It’s happened before, though. Ben remembers his mother smearing the same gel onto his own back last summer after a day at the beach, dawn to dusk, left him lobster red. She’d taken care of all the spots he couldn’t reach, even brought him food after he’d claimed walking to the kitchen to be too painful (even though it wasn’t). Recalling this, Ben feels momentarily guilty, as he stares still at Armitage, recognizing all the patches on his upper back he won’t be able to reach. He isn’t about to offer him any help, though. Best case-scenario, Ben would get his hands bitten clean off by the red redhead. Briefly, he envisions Armitage as a vile little poodle, like one of the ones Ms. Mothma owns, yipping and snapping at every visitor. It’s a funny image.

When Armitage does try to reach his back, in the awkward silence persisting and for lack of anything better to observe than how bad of a job he is doing, Ben comments “You lied to the Nurse.”

“I didn’t.” Armitage denies almost immediately, lying for the second time this morning.

Ben raises his brows in mock incredulity, and far less afraid of the Counselor in Training than he had once been, supplies a disbelieving “Okay.” He knows, by now, just how much the word riles Armitage, and true to Ben’s suspicions, the other wheels his head around.

From over his shoulder, Armitage shoots a sharp glower, but his red face and hair make a pitiable combination that only contributes to Ben’s inability to take him seriously. “You wouldn’t even know what sunscreen is,” Armitage snarls.

Ben shrugs. While the other is right, he’s not about to confirm it for him. All Ben knows about the lotion is what he can guess from its title, which isn’t a lot, but he has some theories.

The Nurse returns then, a fat handful of bandages in her grip. Both boys fall silent at her entrance, and Armitage turns quickly back around. She shoves all but one bandage into a drawer, then after pulling on a fresh pair of gloves returns her attention to Ben.

Over the Nurse’s shoulder, Ben can spot Armitage pulling his shirt back on. It’s too soon, and the yellow fabric clings to his skin in places, the aloe beneath not completely dry. He leaves in a hurry after returning the bottle to the Nurse with a curt “thank you”, and after he’s disappeared back out the door, Ben can finally relax again, free of him for a little while longer. Ben thinks he’d be just fine to go the rest of camp without ever having to see him again.

As the Nurse brushes his hair back from his forehead to place the new bandage, fingers catching on a few knots, Ben pulls a face that goes ignored. As she works, nearly finished, the Nurse launches into the same reminders she’d given Ben yesterday; don’t pick at it, don’t get it wet, and come see her after showers for a new one. Ben hops down from the table once she’s done, stretches, but both in curiosity and an effort to delay heading to the dining hall a little longer, he lingers to ask her what sunscreen does while pretending to be only half interested. After she explains, attributing it to something only more “delicate-skinned” people use, he still doesn’t get why Armitage won’t use it. If he wants to stay sunburnt and crabby though, that isn’t Ben’s fault. At least Armitage can’t claim he doesn’t know what it is anymore.  
  
  
  
  
Ben decides ultimately against playing sick. If the Nurse hadn’t seen through his act, his mom would have, and even if he’d managed to deceive both of them he still doubts that his not being there has resolved much of the fighting at home. Camp is, for now, the lesser of the two evils, even if it fails to be the “fun and rewarding” experience its brochure had assured. The booklet was full of shit, and this camp and everyone in it mirrors it. Armitage Hux especially.

So, after a morning alone spent playing a game of solitaire (and cheating) during recreational time, Ben finds himself trailing sluggishly after a massive procession of campers down a sun dappled dirt trail. While he’s been itching to explore the woods since he’d gotten here, this isn’t how he’d wanted it to happen. He wants to explore them freely and _alone_ , not while forced to follow his asshole bunkmates as they check off on a stupid worksheet like this is school. Ben sughs, remembering that school is something too which waits for him back home, summer already in its final stretches.  
  
Once everyone, moving way too slowly, at last reaches the tall post of painted, wooden arrows marking the start of the trails, they are all had to stop and be explained the rules of this particular challenge. There’s too many rules at this camp, and Ben is sick of them. Rules have never stopped him at home, and they sure as fuck haven’t here, either, evident by the tree branch which now sits at the bottom of the lake. Still, he has to listen to those rattled out to him now as if they’re going to affect his behavior in the least. Out of sheer boredom, Ben scratches at the healing scrapes on his back through his shirt, digging his nails in harshly at times just for something to do.

The words and warnings listed out numerically by the Counselor standing before the campers drift in one ear and out the other, only half registering to Ben. Rule One: always stay with your bunkmates. Rule Two: always stay on the trails. Rule Three: “respect the environment”. No jumping in the streams, no causing damage to any trees or rocks, no taking anything with you. Ben scoffs a little at this one when he hears it. Trees can’t feel anything, and he’s beginning to harbor a grudge towards the things, anyways.

Rule Four is to watch out for bears and remember how to act if you spot one, which is pretty much to run away without running. It feels like useless advice. Though the Counselors assure no bears have been seen near the camp in years, the campers all still eye the woods uneasily at the mention. Ben wonders if he got mauled by a bear if his parents could pull their shit together for long enough to take care of him. He doubts it.

While the rules drag on, progressing to those of the actual challenge itself, Ben finds himself more preoccupied by the way the shadows of leaves sway over the path; a blur of yellow and gray in constant motion with the breeze, never quite allowing his eyes to focus. He trades his weight between his feet restlessly. Even if he has to explore these woods with shitty parameters, Ben just wants to _move_ already. In his impatience, the words spoken to the campers register with him even less, though he zones back in at the mention of a banned waterfall, one crossed out with a big, fat ‘X’ on the heavily photocopied checklist each camper carries to mark off on as they go along. It’s no longer a part of the challenge; something about a flood having taken out a large part of the trail. Ben wants to find it anyways, though he hasn’t decided if he’s going to try, yet.

Minutes, maybe hours later, finally, _finally_ the Counselor shuts up and they’re allowed to move. Ben can’t remember if he’s ever been so grateful for an opportunity just to walk.  
  
  
  
  
First on the list is a mushroom ring, below it and next, several different types of trees with grainy illustrations of their leaves or needles placed helpfully beside them. Ben doesn’t look actively for anything on the list, but spots a Black Oak growing just off the trail fairly quickly. It’s wider, squatter than the pines surrounding it, and in a slight clearing of its own. Its leaves, from what Ben can see, match the sheet, too. He doesn’t bother pointing it out however; half in sabotage of the bunkmates he despises, and half because his attempts to point out another item half an hour back had gone completely unheard. He’s fine with this, he thinks. He’d prefer just to disappear completely at this point, but hovering ignored in the background is close enough.

Ben entertains himself collecting small things off the trails just as he was told he shouldn’t. He doesn’t take anything monumental, knows better than that, at least, but picks rocks from the dirt when they catch his interest, oddly shaped twigs as well. He stores his souvenirs in the pockets of his shorts and they begin to bulge conspicuously. If anyone notices, they don’t say anything. Perks of being ignored.

As they delve deeper into the woods, the local wildlife begins to make itself apparent. Nothing exciting ever shows up, but several times a bird or amphibian hurriedly crosses the path for the safety of the trees before Ben or his bunkmates can get very close. Ben wants to see a deer, or a mountain lion, a bear even, but these creatures never show. Instead it’s more of the same, boring ones he could have found back at home. Who cares if the colors it has, the sounds it makes are different? It’s still a fucking bird.

Legs growing tired and the last of his meager enthusiasm waning, Ben eventually plops down on a flattish rock beside the same stream the path runs along or curves toward in several spots. On a neighboring stone, wet skin glistening in the sun, a newt, gray on top with a red belly, crouches beside him. In the distance, Ben’s bunkmates argue whether the tree they’ve just found is a Ponderosa Pine or just a regular one. A blond boy, younger than the rest of them and probably the densest in the group wonders aloud if it’s actually a White Fir. He goes ignored. Ben favors this stupid newt to all of them. He wishes his parents would let him have a pet of his own.

Ben would kill for a dog, but he’d take just about anything at this point, even a fish. His mom’s too much of a clean freak however, insists that any animals would destroy her furniture, and his dad doesn’t “want to have to feed it when the kid gets bored of it.” He wouldn’t have to; Ben could never neglect a living thing like that. Except for plants, but those don’t count. Dad’s only home five months out of twelve, anyways. Ben doesn’t know what kind of “feeding” he thinks he’ll be doing, unless he sticks a fishbowl in that stupid RV of his and takes it with him. With his dad’s recklessness, it’d be dead in a week.

Eventually, Ben’s bunkmates reach a consensus as two of them scout off down the trail in search of a Counselor to sign off on everyone’s sheets. Ben pays little attention, remaining on his rock until the newt scurries away and then, ass numb, getting up himself too. After he’s dusted the dirt off his pants, he looks up just in time to see his bunkmates returning with none other than Armitage fucking Hux in tow, ruining, too soon, his hopes of never having to see him again. Ben drops his gaze before he’s caught staring, trying to look preoccupied but pretty sure he’s failing since he’s just staring at his own shoes like an idiot. After a moment, Ben elects to drop to one knee and retie one of his sneakers, just in case. He takes as long as he possibly can.

Ahead of him, Ben’s bunkmates crowd in a messy line to have Armitage sign off on their sheets. Ben’s own rests in the dirt beside him, ignored and a bit crumpled. He’s prepared to neglect the challenge rather than deal with Armitage. It’s not like they’re going to be graded on it, and he stopped caring whether or not Red Cabin wins the challenge a long time ago. When the self-proclaimed leader of their group, Lewis, calls him over in an annoyed tone however, he’s forced to reluctantly join them. Ben snatches up his worksheet bitterly, his fingers smearing three faint trails of red dirt along the edge of the page.

Trudging over to Armitage, Ben keeps his gaze down, lifting it only when the Counselor in Training’s feet enter his vision. Armitage’s shoes are of a brand Ben doesn’t recognize, and far cleaner than his own. Ben thinks it’s pretentious, doesn’t see the point of even wearing shoes if you can’t get dirt on them, especially at camp, and still he finds himself suddenly self-conscious of his mud-coated Converse One Stars all the same. His embarrassment only mounts as Armitage’s eyes fall on the streaks of dirt his fingers had left on the page. After it’s taken from him, Ben wipes his hands hastily (and he hopes discreetly) off on the back of his shorts.

With a quick, elegant scribble too distinguished for a sixteen year-old, Armitage signs Ben’s sheet over the clipboard he carries around then passes it back without a word and with only a stiff stare. Their eyes meet a brief second. Armitage’s are expectedly cold, but less sharp, less cruel than Ben has seen them in the past. If anything, he looks just as reluctant, just as embarrassed to be here as Ben is. The second Ben’s hand closes back around the paper, Armitage releases his half, then tucking his clipboard under his arm turns promptly back down the trail.

Ben watches him go, then looks down at his own hand which clutches his worksheet awkwardly. He’s suddenly mindful of the dirt beneath his ragged nails, having just observed how well-kept and _clean_ Armitage’s own are in comparison. Ben doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what his nails look like, or about how grossed out Armitage had been by the dirt on his paper. He doesn’t care, but trailing after his bunkmates as they set off again, this time in search of an Incense Cedar, Ben finds himself trying to scrape his nails clean on his teeth all the same  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Armitage is tired. He feels as though he’s had to walk double that which the campers have, trekking constantly in between groups and always hurried, always rushing, in sharp contrast with the dumb, leisurely pace they all maintain. Armitage wonders if he had ever been so slow, ever looked so stupid prior to having done this scavenger hunt eight times over. He’s doubtful.

One thing he is certain of; he will not miss this place next summer.

Pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow on the back of his arm, Armitage takes a moment to collect himself. His knees and calves tingle oddly whenever he stops moving, are doing so now, and he knows they will feel even stranger when he lays in bed tonight. His sunburn has been further irritated by all the movement, and along his arms and legs he’s already collected a multitude of bug bites, every insect in these bloody woods having sampled his flesh. Though not soon enough, in the very least they’ll be heading back soon. The sun has sunk low enough to be in everybody’s eyes now, and generously speaking, will be below the horizon in one or two hours. The Counselors will call the scavenger hunt off soon if there is no winner, though Armitage doubts this will be necessary. Blue Cabin had had only two items left last he’d encountered them. It’s only a matter of time before whistles sound through the woods, signalling that time is up and to head back to camp. After steeling himself with a deep breath, Armitage wills himself to move again. He can sit down come dinner. He shouldn’t dawdle before the job is done.

Armitage doesn’t make it far down the trail before he runs across a group of girls, Green Cabin, wanting him to sign off on the “Alpine Buttercup” they’ve found. It isn’t an Alpine Buttercup at all, rather some kind of Groundsel, but they aren’t happy to hear this, one of them not satisfied until he tells them _why_. There is no _why_ , it simply isn’t, but still Armitage summons the patience from somewhere to explain, briefly, the petal differences between the two species. He’s grateful for the whistles which sound through the trees not a minute after, interrupting their bargain that he help them find an instance of a “real Buttercup”, then. “ _Be sweet,_ ” they’d pressed. Armitage is anything but.

Green Cabin appears dejected at the sound of the whistles which arrive from every direction, each Counselor blowing their own upon hearing the first so that the noise might effectively carry. Armitage possesses his own whistle, hanging from a lanyard on his neck, though this close in proximity to others he doesn’t use it. He doesn’t need to, either; anyone who hasn’t yet caught the news must be deaf. As they still haven’t moved, Armitage tells Green Cabin to head back to camp, pointing them towards the quickest route. Following their protests, he assures them they have a shot at third place, though it’s a lie. They’re nowhere near, only halfway through their checklist. It gets them to leave however, which is all that matters, ultimately. Armitage is eager for the day to be done, and this brings him one step closer.

Once Green Cabin is out of sight, Armitage heads back along the trail, directing lost teams back to camp, and more firmly directing the stubborn ones still trying to have him sign off illegally on last minute finds. Armitage enjoys control, but detests having to wrestle for it. All the same, managing hordes of rowdy teams is the job he’s been tasked with, and he’ll do as he’s required. What worth anyways is respect without first having earned it?

In the depths of the trails, Armitage discovers Red Cabin bickering amongst themselves and quickly spots something off, something missing. Before they can have him settle their argument, as they’re about to request, he interrupts with an impatient “Where’s Ben?’

It takes everything in Armitage’s power not to roll his eyes as they appear to only notice their missing bunkmate now, searching half-assedly amongst themselves and frowning. Lewis eventually answers for the group, though avoids Armitage’s gaze, not so bold to his face, anymore, though he still speaks plenty behind his back.

“Somewhere behind us, I think. He pulls that sort of shit, you know?” The boy works a hand through the back of his hair, obviously uncomfortable. “Hard to get him to do anything.”

Exasperated as he is, Armitage still empathizes with the statement, having dealt with his fair share of Ben’s antics himself. Regardless, if Ben isn’t just behind them as his team claims, they have a missing camper on their hands. Armitage grits his teeth. “No matter how _insufferable_ or insolent the boy may be, the rules were _very clearly_ to stay with your bunkmates. If it takes me more than a minute to find him, I’m issuing write-ups for all of you. Get back to camp.”

The boys of Red Cabin all uneasily nod, not entirely phased by the severity of the situation, though it’s beginning to finally dawn on them now that the threat of punishment looms. Armitage sighs, and after ensuring they do as they’re told, heads deeper into the woods in search of Ben.

It takes far longer than a minute to find the camper, though Armitage’s concerns are less with whether he will uphold Red Cabin’s punishment, and more with how he intends to tackle Ben. Armitage discovers the boy half a mile down, and off the trail, visible through the trees only for the bright yellow of his shirt. He has a hand cupped around one of his ears, listening intently for something, through for what Armitage couldn’t care less. Ben either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t acknowledge his approach. Knowing Ben, Armitage leans on the latter theory.

Armitage comes as near to Ben as he might without stepping off the trail, and waits. He doesn’t wish to engage the camper unless it’s entirely necessary, doesn’t even want to be the one who has to retrieve him in the first place, though he isn’t about to summon someone else for the task. For one, he’s perfectly capable, and doesn’t believe in delegating work unnecessarily, and two, he doesn’t want to envision what the camper might get up to in the time it would take for a Counselor to respond. Thus, Armitage stands and he waits, begging, silently, that Ben will abandon whatever it is that holds his attention and return to the trail. On his own, and soon.

As anticipated, though not hoped for, Ben doesn’t.

Minutes later, as Armitage is contemplating his own words, struggling not to spit the rather venomous first few which come to mind, Ben lowers his hand from his ear finally, and speaks.

“If you stand right here you can hear the waterfall.” His voice sounds half-absent and indifferent, more so than Armitage would prefer it in his presence. He doesn’t turn around, either, as he says this, speaking instead to the trees.

Begrudgingly, Armitage approaches the very edge of the trail. The toes of his sneakers brush the grass which borders it. “The waterfall is no longer part of the challenge, _Ben_.” Armitage delivers his name as though it were an insult in of itself. With the camper’s reputation, by now it ought to be. “It’s helpfully crossed out on your sheet, if you’ve somehow managed not to hear the rules, _again_.”

Ben doesn’t move, doesn’t respond. He remains staring out into the Yosemite wilderness, back irritatingly to Armitage.

Armitage’s frustration only rises, flames fueled by every second of unaffected silence Ben emits. With a scowl, he finds himself speaking again, even while recognizing none of this is worth his efforts.

“Besides, that’s ridiculous. If you can hear it, everyone else would have, too.”

“They don’t hear anything.” Ben states plainly.

“That’s hardly-” Armitage begins to argue, though before he can finish Ben cuts him off, _shushing_ him of all things. Embarrassed by his sudden, unthinking compliance to the sound, Armitage shoots him a resentful glare.

Ben turns finally after a moment, grinning, amused at the sight of Armitage’s livid expression, then gestures him over with a small wave of his hand.

It’s an offensive offer. Armitage isn’t going to go. He won’t.

Several seconds pass, and this communicates, without words, to Ben.

“Okay. You can stay there,” the camper begins with a small shrug. “And miss out. That’s fine by me.” With this as his parting remark, Ben turns to walk farther into the woods, farther from the trail, appearing truly indifferent as to the rules he’s breaking, as to the setting sun, as to whether or not Armitage follows.

He’s mad.

Armitage stands uneasily as he watches the camper go, restless, though not driven yet to action. He looks either way down the deserted path he stands on, then once to the sky as though he has any faith it might answer him. Then, with a huff through his nose, Armitage closes his eyes and deliberates as long as he dares. He isn’t going to do this. He’s not. A minute passes. He opens them again, and spots Ben nearly out of sight, the yellow of his camp tee barely visible. With a swear, he resigns and steps finally from the trail, making a half sprint after the boy before he loses him.

Ben Solo will be the death of him. Armitage is sure of it.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the cliffhanger. chapter #4 should be out sometime next week, and in the meanwhile we all have the TLJ trailer to look forwards to!
> 
> moodboard for this chapter up on my tumblr [here.](http://42dicks.tumblr.com/post/159464661045)


	4. lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben uses the f-word like a dozen times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> take two morals from this chapter:
> 
> the first is never to believe me when I tell you I'll have a new chapter out in just one week. the second is never to follow strange boys into the woods. 
> 
> no warnings apply that I can think of.

  
  
“All you’ve done is get us lost,” Armitage comments bitterly. Warily, his eyes survey the surrounding woods as he carries after Ben, close behind the camper now. The sun is nearly level with the horizon, threatening to slip beneath it, and they haven’t been in sight of the trail for almost ten minutes. As he follows Ben, unwillingly, miserably, Armitage thinks only of how soon his absence from camp will be noticed and the reprimand he might receive. He fears the camp’s punishments less than his father’s. The man’s disappointment is a dreadful thing to experience, rivaled only, perhaps, by the pressing threat that he and Ben will end up genuinely lost. Armitage’s confidence that they will find their way back isn’t gone yet, but wanes every step further they stray from the trail.

“Bullshit,” Ben argues. Armitage hates this new bravado he’s found. “We’re almost there, just - shut up a second.”

Armitage growls at that. “Do not tell _me_ to _shut up._ ”

Ben stops suddenly and sticks out his arm, forcing Armitage to stop as well lest he collide with it (which he comes close to doing). “ _Shhhh,_ ” Ben presses.

Stunned, silent in indignation, Armitage complies. Collecting his balance he glares daggers at the back of Ben’s head. He considers turning around this instant, stalking back to the trail, and leaving him out here. A sound soon catches him however, now that they are both stopped and silent, neither the noise of their feet nor their voices present to cover it. It’s the sound of water, but rough, heavy, a perpetual white roar distinct from the smooth trickle of the stream. Armitage blinks, his previous thoughts forgotten. He mutters quietly, “Is that…?”

Ben turns to look at him then, a wide, triumphant grin splitting his face. “Told you,” he teases.

The remark causes Armitage’s cheeks to heat, but before he can conjure a retort, Ben is already moving again. A newfound determination appears to double his pace, and Armitage is forced half to jog to keep up with him. Not far along, the thorny limbs of some plant snare his ankle, forcing him to stay put long enough to untangle himself. Ben doesn’t slow as Armitage falls behind, and as the camper threatens to disappear behind the hill he’s climbing, Armitage shouts after him.

“Dammit, Ben! Slow down!”

Ben hears him, laughs, but does no such thing.

The thunder of the waterfall grows louder as they near, able to be heard even over the sounds of their clumsy movements through the wild. They’re close, and both hurry now, resentment forgotten for the time being. Armitage hasn’t seen the waterfall in years. He more distinctly remembers having been present when his father had removed the landmark from the challenge than the landmark itself. It was once the highlight of the scavenger hunt, far more exciting than any trees or flowers, and a bragging point to find first (as whichever team had Armitage that year always did). Armitage finds he’s missed it. As he chases after Ben, the other far more adept at traveling off-trail than himself, a liberating, giddy feeling builds in his chest.

Although he has by now broken countless rules and is bound soon to suffer the consequences, Armitage finds still that he is _excited_ , and the feeling worries him. He reasons that the moment they find the waterfall, they’ll turn right back around. It can’t be long now before they reach it, by his ears’ judgement, and while too far for comfort they still aren’t _that_ far from the trail. It isn’t likely he’ll be missed, and on the off-chance he is, he’ll cast the blame onto Ben. This _is_ all his fault, anyways.

As they approach, the clamor of the waterfall is soon the only thing which can be heard. It isn’t long before its crest is visible through the trees, the rest of the landmark concealed by the hill which it rests at the foot of. At the sight, Ben breaks into a full sprint. Pride abandoned, Armitage catches himself doing the same seconds later. He convinces himself it is only to keep up, though a small laugh bubbles in his chest as he runs, one he doesn’t dare allow past his lips. He remembers the waterfall now, remembers it clearly. He remembers its numbing, hypnotic sound. He remembers how the endless supply of water from the mountain caps had once perplexed him, his mind unable to comprehend its sustainability. He remembers the clear, tempting pool beneath it, filled with large, rounded pebbles dark brown in color. All of it comes into view as the pair break the hill, and begin their descent down to it.

In his blind, reckless eagerness, still running, Armitage misses a step on the steep ground. His feet fly out from under him, flinging dirt into the air, and he lands flat on his ass, the air knocked from his lungs. Pain sobers him almost immediately, removing him from his prior, giddy feeling and returning him to reality. He drops his head back and remains on the ground a moment, catching his breath and gritting through the initial wave of pain.

Ben, whose long legs have lead him already to the water, spins around at the sound of Armitage’s fall. Needless concern catches his features. He looks ready to move for Armitage, but hesitates, thinking better. Instead, shouting to be heard over the crashing torrent, he calls out, “You okay?”

Armitage props himself up on his elbows, and hisses back, “Fantastic.” Sooner than preferable, he stands out of spite. He dusts his dirty, scraped palms off on his shorts, then straightens himself, disregarding the tenderness of his tailbone. When he walks again, resuming his trek down to the water, he does so slowly.

After observing Armitage rise, Ben turns back around, dodging, just in time, the glare Armitage shoots him. Gaze returned to the water, Ben shucks off first one of his sneakers and then the other. When he peels off his socks, too, dropping them carelessly to the ground, Armitage gathers his intentions.

Stopping just a few feet behind Ben, maintaining a careful distance, Armitage accuses, “Don’t tell me you plan on trying to drown yourself _again_.”

Ben doesn’t reply. Instead, with a barely audible snort he steps into the pool and carries forward. The water reaches his calves before long. It’s ice-cold, Armitage knows, colder than even the lake, being nearer to the source and shielded from the sun by surrounding trees. Somehow, though, Ben appears unaffected by the temperature and continues unhindered until the water reaches his waist. His shorts trail behind him in the pool, half floating.

This has gone on long enough.

From the shore Armitage demands, “Get out of the water, Ben! We’re headed back for the trail.”

Ben pauses, and half turns where he stands. Armitage, for an incredulous second, thinks that he may be, for once, listening to him. Then one of the camper’s hands goes to his back, claws for purchase on the shirt which he next yanks over his head. He balls it up, and tosses it to shore.

The yellow wad of cotton flies past Armitage’s arm, nearly clipping it, and lands somewhere on the dirty ground behind him. Armitage twitches with annoyance. He has never had his authority so casually dismissed before. Would it not get him wet, and defeat the purpose of ever having followed Ben out here in the first place, Armitage would throttle him. Riled by Ben’s apathy he calls out, “Enough, Ben!”

Predictably ignoring Armitage, Ben continues deeper into the pool, drawn to the waterfall like a bug to light, too stupid to recognize the looming consequences of his actions. The water laps at his mid-back now.

While affronted, anxious, Armitage still does not go after Ben, anchored to the shore. He cannot physically force Ben’s compliance, nor do his words have any effect. There is little Armitage can do but voice his rising contempt, which he does, for better or worse. With his hands cupped around his mouth to ensure that he’s heard he shouts, “I hope you roll your bloody ankle!”

Distantly, Armitage hears Ben laugh.

Ben doesn’t stop until he stands just before the waterfall. There, he turns around and raises his arms from his sides in a theatrical gesture. He wears an amused, cocky grin Armitage can make out from where he stands, and his dark eyes glitter with the last of the setting sun, alight with something wild and joyous and vaguely unhinged. Having secured Armitage’s attention, as if he ever might have lost it, Ben takes a step backwards, dangerously close now to the downwards torrent.

What Ben stands before is no Niagra Falls, but particularly with his body there for scale it appears threateningly large, powerful enough, perhaps, to knock someone under and hold them there permanently. As he gets closer, Ben shuts his eyes in clear anticipation of the spray. Armitage wishes he could shut his own, his dread building as Ben eases back another small step, and then another. One more, and he passses under the waterfall, the massive curtain of water obscuring him from view. Ben Solo disappears.

Amidst the terror it causes him, there exists a thrill too to Ben’s recklessness, his freedom, an appeal Armitage almost wishes he could partake in. He remains however on the shore with the courage neither to stop Ben nor accompany him. He’s bound by a sense of fear; fear of letting go, fear of joining him. Fear that the water is just as violent as it appears and that Ben rests currently at the bottom of the pool, trapped beneath it. Fear that he will be forced once more to dive after Ben, and that his chances of saving him again are even slimmer than they’d been the first time. Armitage’s toes curl in his shoes as he wrestles with the urge to do so now. He’s aware he’ll likely make a fool of himself, but unable to ward off the image in his mind of Ben laid out on the ground where he stands now, lips blue and breathless. There would be no Counselors present to resuscitate him this time, only Armitage.

_Useless._

In the end, not half a minute passes between when Ben disappears behind the water and when he emerges, but the seconds pass at an agonizing crawl. His mood jarring in the light of Armitage’s fears, Ben breaks the spray laughing. His long, dark hair is plastered over his face like a mask, only his nose showing through, and his arms are still outstretched though he drops them soon to his sides. He’s… fine, Armitage realizes, and releases the breath he’s been holding since the moment Ben went under.

For all his relief, Armitage still glares at Ben, annoyance striking him anew.

After sloshing forwards a few blind, heavy steps, Ben swipes his hair back from his face and blinks through water-laden lashes. The bandage on his forehead, peeled back and ruined now, dangles by a sole strip of tape. Armitage is certain he wasn’t supposed to have gotten the wound wet, let alone pummeled by an off-trail, forbidden waterfall.

Still laughing, Ben attempts to wave Armitage over, though his voice is lost to the crashing of the water behind him. His missing words don’t matter much; it isn’t hard to grasp what he wants.

Armitage crosses his arms over his chest, and doesn’t bother to conceal the upward roll of his eyes. Ben’s is a laughable proposition, though Armitage has less ground to speak from, he supposes, given he did follow him out here. As though physically affirming his decision not to join Ben this time, he plants his feet a little more firmly on the shore. This has gotten out of hand.

“Are you finished?” Armitage calls loudly. “I hope you know I won’t be joining you.”

Ben takes a second to register Armitage’s words, struggling to hear him, Armitage suspects, but eventually frowns. He appears disappointed but not altogether surprised by the rejection. Not pressing Armitage this time, Ben moves on, stepping further from the waterfall to wring his hair of water. He next shakes it out like a dog, restoring some but not all of its previous volume. Ben continues to shore without a word, pebbles crunching beneath his bare feet, and passes Armitage to snatch his shirt off the ground.

Armitage turns just enough to watch Ben pull it on without bothering to dry any further, and grimaces. The yellow cotton soaks quickly through and clings to Ben’s skin. To pull on his shoes, Ben sits in the dirt, and his socks go on over wet, muddy feet. The knots he ties them with are messy, and the bows to big. When Ben rises again, water drips from the sodden shorts hanging heavy from his waist. It’s an altogether unseemly image Ben comprises. Armitage finds it representative of his personality.

“You’re a mess,” Armitage comments carelessly.

Ben doesn’t acknowledge the remark immediately. Instead, he rips the soggy bandage dangling from his forehead off and drops it crumpled to the earth. He turns to begin climbing the steep slope isolating the waterfall, then mutters back, belatedly, “And you’re no fucking fun.”  
Glaring after him, Armitage debates a retort but says nothing. He resignedly follows Ben and prays the other is done for the evening. He isn’t in the mood for any more “fun”, as if he ever had been in the first place.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
As they drag themselves back up the hill, away from the waterfall, silence hangs heavy in the air between them, interspersed only by the occasional sounds of one of their feet slipping in the dirt. Ben’s stomach sinks as they climb. His throat feels tight. He trails behind Armitage despite having lead earlier, shame weighing him down. He’s aware now of three mistakes he’s made all in a matter of minutes.

First off, he’d gotten his stitches wet, just like the Nurse had warned him against this morning. Adhesive lost to the water, two have popped off and his cut has reopened, widened. It stings, still shining with water, and every passing breeze only reminds him it’s there. Ben keeps a hand over it, and while he tries not to pick at it can’t stop himself entirely. He wonders how he’s going to explain this to the Nurse, wonders if an excuse about the shower would work. It probably won’t, but he doesn’t think she’ll press him for answers either. Hopes not.

Second, Ben doesn’t know his way back. The waterfall had been easy to find - he’d just used his ears - but the path doesn’t offer any noise to guide him back by; a realization hitting him only now, after the fact. He swallows uncomfortably as they break the hill, a line of indiscriminable trees awaiting them at the top. He has an idea which direction they’d come from, but he’s not entirely confident and he hadn’t exactly traveled here in a straight line, either. He struggles to think of how he will break the news to Armitage, which brings him to his third mistake; having dragged the Counselor in Training here with him. Now they’re both in this mess.

While Ben, at one point, might have enjoyed, even sought out a chance to spend time with Armitage, he’s still resentful over having been abandoned the night before in the dining hall. Armitage is currently pissed off, too, leaving them on even worse terms than they’d started.

Ben curls his arms around himself as they step back into the woods. He’s shaking slightly with cold with the sun almost gone and himself still soaked. His eyes are unfocused, his feet numb and moving on their own accord. Ben tries not to let shame overtake him, and reminds himself just to breathe. It’s an exercise his uncle taught him, and one that’s never really worked.

Armitage, a few steps ahead of Ben, scans the trees with narrowed eyes. Ben’s mistake seems to be dawning on him without Ben ever having to say anything out loud. While it’s something of a relief, Ben remains tense in anticipation of having his head chewed off.

As Armitage slows, eventually stopping, Ben catches up to him and, closer now, can hear him muttering under his breath.

“There was a path here,” Armitage assures no one but himself. He paces a few steps one direction, cranes his neck, then travels a few in another. “I’m sure of it.”

Skeptically, Ben eyes the woods. He looks next to Armitage almost sympathetically. There clearly isn’t a trail here, or at least not anymore. After a moment spent building the courage, Ben contributes carefully with a small shrug, “They mentioned a flood earlier…”

Almost instantly Armitage’s hand flies to his face, striking it with an audible smack. Ben winces, but drops the expression when Armitage rounds on him, spitting the words Ben’s been dreading.

“This is all your fault!” Armitage snaps, his rage redirected.

Ben tightens his jaw and struggles not to start a fight. Armitage isn’t _wrong_ , but being a dick about it isn’t going to get them out of here.

“I know,” Ben utters tensely.

Armitage only seems more frustrated that Ben won’t engage him. The hand still resting on his forehead rakes back through his red hair, destroying its neat part. “ _’I know,’_ ” he mocks in an exaggeratedly low voice, the same one dumb characters in cartoons always have. “How daft are you, even? Do you even know anything other than two word sentences? Fuck. ‘I know’ won’t get us out of here, _Ben_ , so if you have anything _valuable_ to contribute, for once in your life, let’s hear it.”

Armitage is panicking. Ben recognizes this, fully, but it does nothing against the impact of his insults. As he listens, Ben’s fists form tight balls at his sides. He wonders how he could have ever wanted the attention of someone so shitty.

Armitage Hux is no less of a dick than the rest of them, just prettier.

Though he tries to keep quiet, Ben’s tongue finds him anyways and for once, he uses it.

“Can _you_ even anything but fucking complain all the time?” Ben snarls, his nostrils flaring. “All you do is fucking talk! It’s like you’re in love with the sound of your own voice! You don’t even say anything important, just dumb shit everyone listens to because they’re fucking _afraid_ of you.” A dry, shaky laugh leaves Ben with that. He’s trembling hard enough with cold and nerves now to set a waver into his voice, but he ignores it. He ignores too the way his voice cracks at the end of his next sentence. “I don’t even know _why!_ ”

In front of Ben, Armitage stands completely still. His lips are parted, and he stares at Ben now in nothing but shock, his blue eyes wide. Ben realizes that he should probably stop, but he can’t now. His frustrations with Armitage, with this camp, with himself have finally found their outlet. He can’t stop them any more than he can stop the current fueling the waterfall behind them. He continues.

“So what, you can insult people? Is that all you ever fucking do? Can you even _care_ about anybody beyond your own fucking self, or are you just a robot? You act like a fucking dictator when you’re just some lame fucking Counselor! It’s why nobody likes you!” Voice quieting, rage steadily dissipating, Ben looks, really looks at Armitage before finishing. “You know that, too, but you still do it. It’s like you’re afraid _not_ to be mean all the time.”

Breathing, finally, Ben stops and roughly wipes the damp hair clinging to his face away. He steadies himself, quelling the tremors of his body as best he can, and redirects his gaze to the ground. He can’t look at Armitage anymore. Seeing that stupid, startled expression on his face only makes him feel worse. Ben starts moving again once he gets tired of stiffly standing there, and stomps off angrily in the vague direction of the trail. He kicks angrily at every plant which snags his shoes.  
  
  
  
  
They finally start to slow after what feels like hours of carrying on aimlessly through the woods. Ben leads them still, though he’s just wandering at this point, hoping to spot a patch of the trail. It’s dark now, difficult to see, and they have no plan. The silence which has stretched since Ben’s outburst only worsens things. They won’t communicate. Armitage will hardly even look at him, now.

After drawing a deep breath, Ben announces: “This isn’t working,” though it’s not really something which needs to be said. Neither of them can see far in front of themselves at this point. Ben’s thighs are chafed from shuffling around in wet shorts, his calves are whipped by underbrush, and he’s fucking tired, and sore, and knows Armitage has to be too. Armitage’s proud posture is slipping, anyways. Spotting a fallen tree not far from them, semi-visible in what of the moonlight reaches them through the branches above, Ben moves for it and concludes: “I’m sitting down.”

Ben plops down on top of the log, his body heavy. He watches Armitage, in front of him now, look around a moment, sigh, then follow suit. He doesn’t sit right next to Ben, but he doesn’t sit on the opposite end of the log, either, so it’s progress. Ben closes his eyes for a moment, exhausted, and tears a piece of bark from the log to toy with.

It’s Armitage, surprisingly, who breaks the silence first. Voice sounding unnervingly hopeless and void of its usual certainty, he says: “We’re going to starve to death out here. How long does that take, do you reckon?”

Opening his eyes, Ben turns to look at Armitage. It’s a complaint he’s made, but it’s not one aimed at Ben, for once, and Ben doesn’t really blame him for complaining right now, either. Shrugging, he replies: “You don’t think a bear would get us first?”

Ben regrets the question almost immediately after he’s asked it. He regrets solidifying the idea of any threats that might wait for them out here. The woods are undeniably scary at night, and Ben’s sure that Armitage is just as shaken as he is by every crunch of leaves and every broken twig not caused by their own feet. Ben’s thoughts have drifted more than he wants towards a serial killer in the mountains he’s read about. Armitage seems unbothered by the question though, at least.

“I’m still leaning on the hope one might eat you first,” Armitage begins. “You’re…” He pauses here to make a strange gesture with his hands, a shape in the dark. His skin holds an almost blue tone in the low lighting; a color both eerie and beautiful at the same time. Shadows contort his expressions. “Larger.”

Ben snorts. He doesn’t know if Armitage is serious, but it’s funny all the same. A relief. He says nothing in response, doesn’t feel the need to, and things fall quiet between them again.

Spreading his fingers, Ben allows for the dozens of pieces he’s broken the bark into to slip through his hands. Beside him, Armitage rests with his face in his own hands. He remains still for so long Ben starts to worry he’s fallen asleep.

As he watches him from the corner of his eyes, Ben debates whether or not Armitage is actually asleep, and whether or not it’s worth the potential backlash of trying to wake him up. Before he can act however, or decide not to, Armitage sits up suddenly as though seized by a sudden inspiration. Ben jerks in surprize, then hurries his gaze back down.

“Ben,” Armitage starts, and to hear his name spoken without derision makes Ben’s heart flutter in his chest. With obvious difficulty, Armitage manages his next word. “I’m-”

“No,” Ben interrupts. He knows where this is going. It’s uncomfortable. It’s forced. Ben had wanted an apology once, but he doesn’t anymore.

“...No?” Armitage asks.

“No,” Ben repeats. “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

Armitage twists on the log to face Ben fully. His cheekbones reflect the moonlight while his eyes and cheeks themselves form sunken hollows in the dark. It’s a little unnerving.

Ben looks anyways, but only for a moment. He realizes quickly that he doesn’t have the words he needs to explain himself and casts his gaze down. He reaches to scoop a dead leaf off the ground.

Armitage stares after him, appearing for a moment without a response until he looks down too. He mumbles eventually, “No, I um-” then stops, caught on his words. He acts for the first time since Ben has known him ashamed, embarrassed, _human_. “You were right.”

At the admission Ben’s skin prickles but still he says nothing. Most of the time he doesn’t have a clue what to say. Most of the time, when he does speak, it’s on impulse. Ben breaks the dry leaf he holds the bits, and lets this too fall through his fingers.

“I needed to hear that,” Armitage finishes lamely.

Ben nods a brief acknowledgement in the dark. He feels awkward and wishes this had never been brought up at all. He doesn’t know if Armitage sees his response, but doesn’t care much.

Though neither of them say anything after that, the atmosphere between them has shifted to something less hostile. If they do both die out here in the woods, they won’t hate each other through it. Ben hopes so, at least.

The log he sits on is uncomfortable, and when Ben’s ass starts to fall asleep, he sinks to the ground uncaring of the dirt. He stretches out his sore legs then drops his head back, resting it up against the log. The bark tickles, scratches the back of his neck through his hair, but doesn’t bother him enough to move. His attention is instead on the stars he’s angled to see now. Where they’ve stopped, there are surprisingly few branches overhead to obscure them.

Back where Ben is from, the stars aren’t much visible. The brightest of them are, but they live too near to the city and the sky is too clouded by light to see much else. Ben rarely gets the chance to stargaze save for when his parents, or on worse, rarer occasions, his Uncle Luke drags him out camping. There was an entire summer Ben’s parents had forced him to spend with his uncle, claiming it would be good for him. They’d used those same words about this camp, too. Ben is tired of being made to do things he doesn’t want to do, being made to go places he doesn’t want to go. He’s tired of his parents’ attempts to fix him, and being made to feel wrong as he is.

Uncle Luke usually called him back into the tent too early for any real fun, or any real stargazing, but Ben’s mom would let him stay up to do it all the time. As they lie on a blanket in the grass, she would point to and name the stars for him, one by one. They’d do this so often Ben could name them with her, and did.

In those days, Mom’s knowledge on everything felt infinite, though Ben’s past that illusion now. There’s a lot she doesn’t understand, things about himself in particular. Ben still holds these memories fond, though, when he’s not angry or bitter enough to avoid them. There was a peace then, a security Ben doesn’t know anymore. He sometimes wishes he still did, especially now; lost and tired and hungry without anyone to guide him.

Ben remembers, less fondly, his father’s role in those nights.

He was disruptive, always, and Ben usually suffered embarrassment on his behalf. Realizing he’d been abandoned sometimes hours after the fact, he’d search for and eventually find his wife and son wherever they’d camped out. He was always sweating from his last task, which was usually repairing something on _The Falcon_ , and would plop down on the grass beside their blanket, grunting as he did so. He was always too loud, too obtrusive, and Ben had hated it.

With a bad joke, Dad would usually insert himself into the conversation, killing the mood. He’d earn sometimes an elbow to the ribs from Mom, or laughter from her and Ben both. Ben wonders if his dad had ever realized they weren’t laughing at his jokes, but at him. He’d never stopped, anyways.

More gracefully than his dad ever would have, it’s Armitage who moves to lie beside Ben now. He sinks down stiffly but elegantly enough, appearing to have found the log as uncomfortable as Ben but unwilling to touch the dirt. He ends up resting at an awkward recline rather than relaxing like Ben has. Ben thinks it’s pretty useless to try and keep clean now, but whatever. Armitage’s comfort really isn’t his problem.

In the dirt, their differences feel less relevant. They’re both scared and exhausted (and hungry, Ben recognizes as his stomach churns). Ben’s less afraid of Armitage than he used to be anyways, or maybe it’s just that rejection means less when pitted against the real threats facing them, like being lost out here forever. Ben’s not afraid of Armitage anymore, but he still feels awkward when he speaks to him again; too clumsy and too loud.

Without looking to Armitage, Ben points to the sky. “You see that kind of orange star right there?” He asks. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, really, but it feels right.

Armitage looks to where Ben is pointing reluctantly. He squints a moment in concentration, then nods, his face slackening.

“Yes.”

“It’s called Antares,” Ben explains. His mouth is dry, and he’s reminded once more of how thirsty he is. “So there’s the little blue ones on both sides - I don’t know if they have names - but if you follow that one on the left down… See the smaller orange one? Then the little star after that, right there…” Ben points. “That’s the tail.”

“The tail of what?” Armitage asks. He sounds both disinterested and annoyed, and doesn’t appear to have followed Ben completely. Ben cracks a small grin anyways. Both Armitage’s forced spite and the way he asks the question are funny in a way.

“Scorpius,” Ben answers. “Now, you see those three bright ones on the other end?”

Armitage says nothing this time, but he’s paying attention.

“Those are the claws,” Ben tells him, and makes a pinching motion with his hands. “It’s a scorpion.”

“It hardly looks like a scorpion,” Armitage mutters, though he still eyes the constellation. His eyes betray a subtle curiosity Ben has never seen on him, and it holds Ben briefly transfixed.

Shrugging once he finally returns his gaze to the constellation, Ben admits, “You didn’t look so mean, at first, but you are.”

Armitage glares at that, and shoves Ben’s shoulder, but Ben’s grin only splits wider. Armitage is only proving his point, and this is the first time he’s ever touched Ben without having to. Absently, Ben’s hand comes up to clutch the spot, easing the pleasant ache.

“I’m a Scorpio,” Ben tells Armitage just to keep the conversation going. Armitage’s scoff is audible, but it doesn’t stop Ben. “When’s your birthday?” He presses.

“This is stupid,” Armitage says instead of answering.

Ben won’t let him off so easy. “When is it?”

Armitage exhales heavily. “There’s no basis to horoscopes,” he begins. The words sound rehearsed, repeated, as though they’re someone else’s and not his own. “They’re silly and irrelevant, and people use them to deny responsibility for their actions as though the positioning of the stars and planets could have _any_ possible influence on the decisions they make. It’s Hippie trash.”

“I’m not a Hippie.” Ben teases. He doesn’t need to see Armitage’s eyeroll to know it’s happened.

“So, is it June?” Ben asks next.

The question throws Armitage off and he looks to Ben bewildered. “I- What?”

“Your birthday,” Ben elaborates. “You sound like a Gemini.”

The sound of exasperation Armitage makes at that is worth everything.

Armitage brings his hands to his face, then staring through his fingers at his feet resigns. “No. It’s September 2nd.”

Ben has to think for a moment, but says eventually. “That’s - I think that’s Virgo?”

Armitage sighs quietly at that, and Ben decides to leave him be for now.

When the ground proves itself to be uncomfortable in its own way, Ben sits up. He locks his arms over his head and stretches, pressing each position until something pops. The cool night air tickles his back where his lifted shirt exposes it, and feeling it ghost over skin scattered with dark moles he can see only in the mirror, he remembers something.

“My mom…” Ben starts, speaking before he thinks. “She’s the one that taught me all of the shit about the stars. Sometimes, though, when we were lying there looking at them for too long, I’d get tired. Roll over.” Ben drops his arms with a satisfied sigh and his hands fall into his lap. “She’d rub my back sometimes, and-” Ben briefly loses his words when Armitage looks to him, a judgemental brow raised. Ben flushes and considers stopping, but he’s come this far already. He might as well finish. “When my shirt would ride up, she’d poke at my moles. Draw lines between them with her finger.” Homesickness washes over Ben at the memory. Her hands were always warm and smooth over his skin. Her nails were long, but never sharp. “She said they were ‘uncharted constellations’.”

Armitage appears unamused still. His expression, what Ben can make out of it, has contorted into something sour even. Ben suspects it isn’t a direct response to his story, but something else. He makes a mental note to ask Armitage about his mom sometime, if he ever gets the chance.

Ben hurries to his conclusion, but looks away from Armitage before continuing. “I think-” Ben hesitates, but pushes through, his heart racing. “I think your freckles would be better for it, though.” His voice trembles a little, and he rushes to bury his confession with another sentence that really doesn’t help things. “There’s a whole fucking lot of them,” he blurts. Whether he’s referencing Armitage’s freckles or the stars, even he’s unsure.

Beside him, Armitage doesn’t reply. Ben can’t see him through the thick veil of his own hair, but hears after a second a small, shuddered breath that makes him ache. Not knowing if he’s done something right or wrong, Ben keeps his mouth shut.

Several minutes pass before Armitage speaks. “Can’t you do something _useful_ with all of this? Like point us North or something?” Ben can tell he’s attempting his usual cold tone, but he doesn’t quite manage it.

Fighting a yawn, Ben nods before pointing a finger at the North Star. “It’s right there. Doesn’t help if you don’t know what direction camp is, though. You don’t know how to find the North Star?” Ben chances a glance toward Armitage and receives a glare which dares him to repeat that question. He doesn’t.

Armitage, after looking at the star a moment longer, stands. Ben watches baffled from the ground.

“We shouldn’t have left the stream,” Armitage mutters. He’s thinking, clearly, his words distracted and his eyes roaming nothing in particular.

Not sure what’s going on, but not wanting to be left behind, Ben pulls himself off the ground too. “You’re the one who lead us away from it,” he comments.

Armitage ignores him, though Ben’s positive he’s heard, and continues with a retaliatory sharpness to his tone. “We could find the path again if we got back to the stream. The trails touch it in a few places. Now, the stream runs mostly East to West, and it was…” Armitage turns a few degrees, then chops the air with his hand. “This way. So we’ve gone South. We just need to go North. We might still make it. I don’t think we’re as late as it feels.”

Without confirming anything with Ben, or even asking, Armitage starts forwards, possessed by a new hope. It’s only when he glances back, arching a brow at Ben that Ben remembers his own feet, and jogs to catch up.  
  
  
  
  
The stream ends up being closer than either of them expected. Instead of traveling in a straight line like they thought they had, they must have been circling the same patch of woods. It’s embarrassing, and neither of them really comments on it. They’re more relieved to be finally getting out of the woods, and too tired to care about much else.

Stepping carefully to avoid wet shoes, they walk along the bank of the stream, taking it West (downhill, and away from the mountains, closer to camp.) They eventually spot a patch of the trail curving just beside the stream, and triumphantly Armitage runs to it, spouting a prideful little speech. Catching up to him, Ben offers a soft smile and doesn’t argue when Armitage insists they take it right. Armitage may not know the woods, but he knows the paths, and Ben is content not to lead anymore, anyways.

Ben expects Armitage to speed up as they near camp or express more of the excitement he’d shown when finding the trail, but he does just the opposite. The closer they get, the more Armitage slows, and he acts uncharacteristically reserved. The few times he does speak it’s quietly, and he sounds distracted, distressed.

It takes Ben a minute to catch on, but he soon realizes Armitage’s fear. He’s afraid of getting in trouble. Ben suspects that doesn’t happen to him often, and the punishment must be worse for a Counselor in Training whose dad used to be part of the staff. He’ll be in more trouble than Ben, anyways, which isn’t really fair since Ben had caused all of this. Ben wants to apologize, or say something comforting, but no words make it past his throat. He just keeps walking.

When they reach the wooden arrow post at the start of the trails Ben hasn’t seen since the start of the scavenger hunt this morning, Armitage stops. His breath comes out too fast for the easy pace they’ve been walking, and he drops his face into his hands, going rigid.

Ben watches cautiously, his chest aching with sympathy. He figures at first it’s probably best to let Armitage compose himself, but minutes pass with no change and Ben recognizes he needs to interfere. There’s no telling how Armitage will react to his attempt at help, but Ben steels himself and steps closer anyways. He isn’t going to leave Armitage like this just because he might insult him again.

When he stands just before Armitage, Ben stops and mutters a soft “Hey.” Armitage’s breathing quiets, but he still doesn’t remove his hands from his face. He has his fingers curled tightly in his hair, his knuckles white. It looks like it hurts, but Ben wonders if Armitage is even aware of it. Heart in his throat, Ben takes a deep breath, then lifts his own hands to gently remove Armitage’s panicked ones. One by one, with his pulse loud in his ears at the thought of touching Armitage unbidden, he carefully uncurls Armitage’s fingers before pulling his hands back from his face.

Armitage doesn’t fight him, but Ben still watches his face carefully as he eases his hands to his sides before reluctantly releasing them. “It’s okay,” Ben tells him.

“I know that.” Armitage snaps, his gaze locked stubbornly on the ground.

Ben doesn’t think he does, but doesn’t argue with him. He turns away from Armitage a minute, eyeing the woods behind him, then turns back.

“Look,” Ben begins, and gestures to a distant orange glow visible through the trees behind him. “You can see the campfire over there. I think we missed dinner,” he says, and ignores his stomach’s protests of the news, “but it’s dark. I think- I think if we’re careful we could sneak into the circle.”

Camp Endor hosts a group campfire nightly, one they’re forced to share facts about themselves around or their favorite part of the day. Ben’s always hated it, but it’s useful tonight. He licks his lips nervously, making the chapped things worse, then continues.

“I know you’ve never broken any rules or anything, but that just means they’ll believe you if you lie. You could tell them you took someone to the Nurse again, or something. They won’t question it because they’re wrapped around your fucking finger. Then me? I think my bunkmates were sort of _hoping_ I’d get lost in the woods. They’re not going to have said anything.”

Armitage lets out a dry snort at that. He’s still avoiding Ben’s eyes, but his muscles are unlocked and he looks a little more at ease. It’s progress.

“Not like I haven’t done worse, either,” Ben assures. “I promise. It’ll be fine.” He offers a half-smile, and then his hand.

Armitage doesn’t accept it immediately. A long minute passes without either of them moving, and Ben’s heart crawls back into his throat. Maybe he’s gone too far this time, humiliated himself all over again. Panic starts to set in, but just before he can withdraw his hand a slender one fits into his. Ben lets out a relieved sound without meaning too, a nervous huff of air passable as a laugh. He squeezes Armitage’s hand reassuringly, then startles when Armitage’s fingers work their way between his.

Blood rising to his face, Ben looks to Armitage for an answer but receives nothing. Not pressing his luck, and remembering to think beyond the giddy feeling which has suddenly enveloped him, Ben ducks his head and leads them onwards.

Hand in his, Armitage follows.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Armitage’s palms have begun to sweat, but if Ben notices, he doesn’t say anything. Armitage doesn’t let go, either.

Their walk to the group campfire is silent, but their hands, intertwined, carry on a conversation of their own. Every twitch of their fingers, every reassuring squeeze Ben supplies whenever Armitage grips his hand too tightly says what it needs to without words, which Armitage is grateful for. Panic still constricts his chest, not debilitating as it had been before, but near to it. His throat is tight, and he doesn’t want to chance speaking.

Armitage remains embarrassed by his earlier breakdown, that Ben, of all people, had been the one to witness it. Ben had been… tender, however, and tactful, neither abilities Armitage had anticipated of him. As much as the attention had made him uncomfortable, it sparks a warm feeling in his gut to recall Ben’s soft “Hey”, and the careful grip of hands Armitage had once considered as clumsy and as senseless as the rest of his actions were. As Armitage’s cheeks begin to heat, he wills the thoughts away, and reminds himself for the dozenth time not to grip Ben’s hand so harshly.

Though his hand must ache from Armitage’s abuse, Ben never complains.

As they near the campfire, the voices of the campers and Counselors both audible now, Armitage and Ben slow, careful with their feet so as not to alert anyone to their presence. At the very edge of the trees, shielded still by darkness and the fat trunk of one just before them, they stop. Armitage is shaking hard enough now he knows Ben must be aware, but Ben doesn’t tease him for it. Instead he smooths his thumb over Armitage’s knuckles. The action sends a new heat rippling through Armitage, and fills him too with an odd, temporary sense of courage.

Delaying for a few seconds, longer than he ought have, Armitage eventually releases Ben’s hand. He wipes his damp palm on his shorts, sucks in a deep breath, bracing himself, then with only a parting glance to Ben steps from the cover of the trees as inconspicuously as he can manage. He doesn’t look back, but trusts Ben will play his role and emerge from a different spot a few minutes later like they’d discussed. For now, he focuses on his own role, curbing the fear that would ruin his acting.

 _It’s okay,_ Armitage hears Ben’s voice in his mind. _It’s okay._  
  
  


* * *

__  
  
Ben emerges from the bushes quietly, creeping up behind his bunkmates before settling silently behind them. They all jump when they spot him, some more obviously than others.

“When the fuck did you show up?” Lewis aks. He’s one of those who’d jumped the highest.

Ben shrugs.

Another of his bunkmates, after casting a side-glance to the boy beside him asks, “Yeah, so, how long did it take Hux to find you?”

Tensing in momentary fear he’s been caught, Ben blinks. “What?”

“He-” the boy resumes, but his friend elbows him before he can finish.

“Shut up. Don’t say anything about it, dumbass.”

Ben watches them quizzically, but doesn’t press it. Ignoring them all, including Lewis when he asks where Ben’s bandage went, he lays back in the dirt and closes his eyes. If he tries hard enough, he can almost conjure the phantom sensation of Armitage’s hand in his. Ben smiles.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now this unintentional slowburn is finally getting somewhere!
> 
> thank you everyone for your continued support! love y'all. 
> 
> (moodboard for this chapter over [here.](http://42dicks.tumblr.com/post/160107506385))


	5. remorse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armitage catches feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so, so late, you wouldn't believe. I apologize. 
> 
> In order to speed things along, this is another chapter which got split in two, so what's below was originally the first half of a much larger chapter. It's short and sweet, but it's something. 
> 
> (a surprise waits in the next chapter, as well, which I hope makes up for things.) 
> 
> regarding the title change, this was to fit it in with the other fics in the series that are all named after songs from the 80s. the plot remains the same. sorry for any disorientation I may have caused.

  
  
The morning is a quiet one. Few sounds reach Armitage’s ears beyond the chatter of birds, the soft rustle of the breeze, and the crunch of his own shoes on the dirt path he walks down. All of the campers sit currently at breakfast. Armitage intends to join them soon, but needs aloe first for the generous burn the sun had granted him. Though fortunately his skin is less pink today, it remains stiff, and tender to the touch.

While the morning is pleasant, warm and subdued, Armitage feels less so. He’s weary. As a consequence of all his wandering through the woods last night his legs feel heavy and sore, protesting his short walk to the Nurse’s, and his eyelids feel similarly weighted. His stomach is tight with hunger, and he alternates between periods of appetite and nausea. Last night, his and Ben’s efforts to sneak back into camp unnoticed had gone successfully, somehow, but they’d missed dinner. It was a small price to pay for the luck they’d otherwise found, but Armitage is eager for breakfast. First things first, however.

Sun blanches the front wall of the Nurse’s cabin, excruciatingly bright but at Armitage’s back as he approaches. He allows himself inside, making an effort not to be any louder with the squeaky door than is necessary for his entry, and doing his best to smother the nervous flip of his heart when he spots a light on in the exam room just past the front desk. It is the same room he’d encountered Ben in the previous morning. He will _not_ get excited at the mere _prospect_ of running into the boy he detests, nor will he place any more faith into the implications of a scenario he had forced. _He_ had threaded his fingers through Ben’s, not the other way around. _He_ had soiled the otherwise innocent gesture, and it had been a mistake.

Armitage’s feet have a different opinion on the matter, dragging him eagerly towards the small room against his will. He very nearly misses the Nurse before she rises from behind the front desk with a phone cradled between her ear and shoulder. Its cord, stretched from the tiny desk across the hall, seems at its limits. In one hand, the Nurse holds a thick mass of papers, and in the other, a pen. Locking eyes with Armitage, she tells him in a rushed whisper, “Help yourself. Bottom row on the right cabinet.”

Armitage nods, takes a breath, ducks under the cord, and proceeds.

Visible from outside the door, Ben’s swinging feet are the first thing Armitage sees. His dirty sneakers sway past one another like twin swings on a set, betraying both his presence and relentless need to move. At the sight, Armitage pretends to hesitate but inevitably steps inside. It is an act played only for himself.

With Armitage’s luck, he and Ben make immediate eye contact, and observing the way Ben’s dark eyes light up at the sight of him ruins any composure Armitage might have mustered. Looking quickly away, and praying his lingering sunburn excuses the sudden color on his cheeks, Armitage hurries to the cabinet. He finds the aloe exactly where it was said to be.

At first, Armitage is relieved to have this task to occupy himself; it allows him to avoid conversation with Ben. Unfortunately, as he quickly recognizes, it is a task less than ideal. Like the morning before, he’ll have to remove his shirt and apply the gel awkwardly in front of Ben. As Armitage turns reluctantly from the cabinets, his eyes scan the room for any furniture to hide himself behind, or a corner to tuck himself into better than the one he currently stands in. The room offers neither. He huffs out miserably.

Just as Armitage has discovered the courage to set the aloe down and reach for the neck of his shirt, Ben pipes up from the table behind him.

“Are you going to wear sunscreen today?”

Armitage pauses, considering telling Ben just to piss off. In the end, he does approximately that.

“Are you going to try drowning yourself again?”

This afternoon would be another Lake Day for the boys, and Ben’s first since his incident with the rope swing. _Not that he’s needed the lake to prove reckless,_ Armitage thinks. His memories flit briefly to Ben’s careless dip beneath the waterfall the night before.

“No,” Ben answers. “Got banned from the lake.”

Armitage frowns. He hadn’t known this, though he’s usually made aware of such things. An odd guilt tugs at him. It had seemed, though he fought often with other campers, that Ben had rather enjoyed the lake. Now he’s lost the privilege, and Armitage cannot deny his heavy hand in the event.

“Oh,” is all Armitage manages. Following a few second’s pause, an unintentional display of remorse, he resumes pulling off his shirt. He keeps his back to Ben once exposed.

It may be excessive, Armitage’s modesty, particularly at a summer camp where all have seen each other in swimsuits before. He remains however less than proud of his body. In contrast to his father’s broad frame, in contrast to even Ben’s more admirable shape, Armitage is meager and wiry. He looks less a boy of his age and resembles more an underfed twelve year-old. His height does nothing to mitigate the damage. In fact, it exaggerates it. And his complexion, particularly with all of the humiliating pink patches he sports currently, is no bragging point either.

As he sets his shirt down carefully on the counter, Armitage subtly observes his forearms. They’re currently dense with freckles, bringing to mind Ben’s ridiculous metaphor from the night before. He’d compared them to stars, or constellations. Both, perhaps, as the latter couldn’t exist without the former. Armitage still isn’t sure what he’d been trying to say, or what he’d meant by it. Whatever the purpose, it had been absurd, and he cannot shake fully the sense he was being made fun of. The passing of night too since they’d seen each other last leads Armitage to doubt Ben’s sincerity.

Dallying no longer, Armitage squeezes a generous amount of aloe onto his palm and then applies it perfunctorily to his chest, shoulders, arms, and thighs. He pulls his shirt back on as soon as he can stand it. As the cotton sticks his skin, Armitage is reminded stupidly of the way Ben’s shirt had clung to his own the night before. Still dripping with cold water from the mountain caps, Ben had pulled on his camp tee prematurely, somehow creating a scene more perverse than his bare skin alone. Armitage recalls Ben’s easy, crooked, cocky smirk. Armitage recalls his dripping hair. Armitage recalls many things, none of which have any place being remembered with the near-fondness he experiences now.

Eventually, the time comes to acknowledge Ben. Armitage’s task completed, it can no longer shield him, and as much as he would rather flee, he doubts he’ll manage to slip out without some form of remark from the camper. Obligation, too, inclines Armitage to talk, to at least great Ben. Not wanting to linger on just why he feels this obligation, he turns from the cabinets with stiff shoulders, and glances to the camper. If it must happen, Armitage may as well get it over with.

Ben’s eyes don’t shy from him the way they used to, the way Armitage had half-hoped they would. Instead, in an unsettling development, they meet his own almost comfortably for the second time this morning. Though Ben’s eyes are bright, awake, beneath them the boy bears dark smudges of fatigue. He looks exhausted, and mindful suddenly of his own heavy eyelids, Armitage wonders if he himself looks the same.

The gash on Ben’s forehead is cleaner now. The two butterfly stitches which had survived his stunt yesterday remain, but no new ones have appeared to replace those he’d lost to the water. While scabbed over at last, the wound is rimmed by a shiny pink; healing, but scarring. Armitage wonders what this says for the rest of the damage he’d inflicted, all of that not physical.

_Can you even care about anybody beyond your own fucking self?_ Ben’s angry voice from the night before echoes through his mind, and Armitage twitches a wince.

_Yes,_ he thinks, and prays it’s true.

“Your cut looks better,” Armitage mutters. It is the closest he can come to greeting Ben, or acknowledging his selfish cruelty that afternoon at the lake, or admitting that anything at all had changed between them the night previous. Against reason, Armitage still finds himself fearing that perhaps nothing had.

“Yeah,” Ben agrees in a quiet, raspy voice, like he needs to clear his throat, but hasn’t yet bothered to do so. It’s mildly agitating.

Ben says nothing else, but Armitage senses, somehow, that he’d understood his intent. It’s debatable whether or not this is a relief.  
  
  
  
  
“We missed you at dinner last night,” Phasma states during breakfast, conveniently just _after_ Armitage has shoved a large forkful of unpleasantly spongy French toast into his mouth. While her gaze is suspicious, her tone is casual. One of her fair, blonde eyebrows is raised in what feels like a challenge.

Armitage frowns, and swallows too soon. At the pain this causes, he’s forced to chase down his under-chewed first bite with orange juice from his carton to ease its descent. He’s still starved and wishes, dejectedly, that he’d had the opportunity to have eaten more than a bite before finding his alibi under scrutiny again.

“I was escorting a camper to the Nurse’s,” he supplies easily, although his voice is moderately pained.

Phasma takes her time to reply, like she delights in leaving him in suspense. She takes a hefty bite of her own breakfast before speaking again, and Armitage watches miserably, not touching his own.

“Ben Solo, again?” She asks around a mouthful.

Armitage tenses immediately at the name.

It’s impossible to tell whether or not he’s been found out. Whether Phasma knows, or whether she is instead trying to wring the truth from him. There stands the chance, too, that it’s a genuine and harmless question, something conversational. Armitage’s blood runs cold all the same.

“...No, actually,” he answers after an incriminating pause. He fears immediately that this was the wrong choice. Ben had never told him his own alibi, only suggested what Armitage should use. He might have assumed Armitage would tell it as though he were the one he’d needed to escort. He might have already crossed paths with and spoken to Phasma somehow, meaning that Armitage has just damned them both. Spearing another bite onto his fork, but unable to bring it to his lips, Armitage stares at Phasma, struggling to gauge the success of his lie.

At his words, Phasma’s expression turns suddenly grave. Her gaze hardens, and her smart, blue eyes bore into Armitage’s while he stares back in abject horror. The hand gripping his fork sinks slowly back down to the table, and his lips part, though what he intends to say he couldn’t guess. Nothing could spare him now.

Seconds pass slowly in this tortuous limbo, and Armitage imagines a millions scenarios for how this will proceed. Will his father be phoned the news immediately, and drive down here to express his disappointment in person before dragging him home? Will Armitage be made to wait out the rest of the week in dread instead? And in such an instance, will he be demoted from his position as a Counselor in Training for the rest of camp? Join the campers? Staring into Phasma’s eyes, Armitage sees his downfall reflected.

And then, Phasms breaks into a wide and playful grin, her eyes twinkling with a joke Armitage doesn’t follow.

“Maybe that crack to his head finally sorted him out, huh?”

Armitage blinks, taking several seconds to register safety, then releases a strange and trembled laugh.

Dopheld, who throughout the whole ordeal has sat silently beside him at the table, eyes him strangely at the sound. Armitage wishes he wouldn’t. Already, all the attention has caused his cheeks to patch with that traitorous red which betrays him on such occasions.

“Maybe,” he agrees, his voice mildly strained. With the past minute spent in a free fall, Armitage isn’t entirely trusting of solid ground.

He busies himself hurriedly finishing his breakfast before another, potentially ruining conversation can find him. But, once he’s certain both Phasma’a and Dopheld’s attention is off of him, he scans the dining hall for sight of Ben, unable to help himself. He spots him in a corner of the room, isolated from the other campers by several seats and… licking his tray clean.

Armitage wrinkles his nose in disgust.  
  
  
  
  
The hot sun on Armitage’s back drives his mind to distraction. Settled atop his towel on the beach, he stares absently out over the glittering lake before him. The sounds of the campers playing in the water are distant, and the heavy summer air, coercive. Armitage is tempted to lay down, to nap, even. He refrains, forcibly keeping his body upright, but finds still that against his will his focus wanders from the campers he’s meant to supervise. A bead of sweat he feels too sluggish to wipe away trickles down his forehead, and his mind similarly slow, he doesn’t chide himself for his distraction as harshly as he might have.

Armitage isn’t a fan of the heat, or of the summer, for a multitude of reasons. This however, this is bearable. Pleasant, even.

“You smell funny,” a voice behind Armitage announces, cutting into his errant thoughts.

Armitage startles from his haze. He whips around to bark, “Excuse me?” before he spots Ben hovering behind him. “Oh,” he acknowledges, deflating, then turns agitatedly back towards the lake.

Ben brazenly takes this opportunity to settle at the end of Armitage’s towel, appearing not to have brought his own. Armitage doesn’t bother shooing him away, though he really ought to.

Though he won’t recognize Ben’s remark, Armitage is aware that he probably does “smell funny.” A liquid white flag to his battle with the sun, he’d applied sunscreen this morning. He’d decided that he was no longer willing to suffer sunburns for the sake of his pride, though this didn’t stop him from applying the lotion in secret; tucked behind his cabin, grimacing as he smeared it on, and praying that the lingering whiteness would subside before anyone spotted him. The scent, while unpleasant, is something which Armitage had stopped noticing shortly after arriving at the lake. At least, until Ben had brought it up again. He can only hope that the camper doesn’t recognize the smell. The last thing he needs is Ben’s inflated ego if he learns Armitage had accepted his advice.

While Armitage attempts admirably to keep his attention where it should be, he finds himself increasingly preoccupied by Ben’s presence in the corner of his vision. Eventually, he can bear it no longer.

“Why are you here?” He snaps.

Armitage cannot admit, to the camper or to himself, that he isn’t _completely_ bothered by Ben’s being beside him. He is however undeniably anxious to have him so near. They’re sitting too close for such a public space. Anyone might see their casual proximity to each other. Anyone might suspect something. Armitage reminds himself that there is nothing _to_ suspect, that nothing condemning has ever occurred between them, but his quiet alarm is something he cannot fully shake.

Ben shrugs easily in reply, sharing none of Armitage’s awareness of their situation. After adding a few finishing touches to the formless design he’s been tracing into the sand before the towel, he settles back with his hands splayed out behind him.

Watching these hands with more focus than he’d like, Armitage wonders guiltily what it might be like to hold one again. Whether the sand clinging to Ben’s skin would grit between them. Whether Ben would notice his own clammy palms. Whether Ben is as warm as he looks, as he had been last night. Whether, by the light of day, he would feel as steadying. Not that Armitage _will_ hold his hand again, or that he even wants to.

With his hands no longer occupied, one of Ben’s bare feet twitches back and forth; the current outlet for his ever-present energy. Armitage watches it move with unfocused eyes. In the background, the lake glows a deep blue, and guilt washes over Armitage anew to recall that Ben has been permanently banned from it. He must be bored out of his mind. Armitage finds himself again stricken by the odd, uncomfortable obligation to say something, but words fail him. Thankfully, Ben compensates.

“You still never told me why you don’t swim,” he says, as though picking up a conversation just paused, as though context matters nothing at all.

Armitage barely even recalls Ben having asked this the first time, but remembers stoutly refusing every one of his curious advances their last afternoon on this beach. It had been only two days ago. Armitage wonders what’s changed, then heaves a quiet sigh. Like all personal questions, this isn’t one he feels inclined to answer. Still, the heat has made him amicable, and again, Ben’s company isn’t _wholly_ unwelcome.

“How do you expect me to supervise the campers if I’m out there splashing with them?” Armitage rebukes. It’s a shallow answer to Ben’s question, but an answer nonetheless.

Ben gestures, by a slight incline of his head, to where Dopheld stands in the lake, entwined in yet another game of volleyball. He’s acting as an unnecessary referee again and Armitage wonders, both in pity and secondhand embarrassment, if he has any clue how much the other campers wish he would mind his own.

“ _He_ does,” Ben argues.

Armitage rolls his eyes. “Dopheld doesn’t count. Just look at him; he’s got no sense of himself. He’s _too_ blooming eager.” It’s harsh, but it’s true. Armitage isn’t exaggerating, and while he _appreciates_ Dopheld, the boy eager to please and always following Armitage around with a certain reverence, he is equal parts agitated by his blindness to social cues. In this respect, he supposes Dopheld might be similar to Ben, but that’s not quite true. Ben is _aware_ of the opinions of others. He simply chooses to disregard them.

Beside Armitage, Ben snorts. “You’re mean,” he tells him, though he doesn’t sound the least bit bothered by it. In fact, he sounds almost charmed.

“So you’ve told me,” Armitage huffs.

“But not as mean as you could be,” Ben elaborates.

This confession settles oddly with Armitage. _Not as mean as you could be._

It’s not _wrong_ , Armitage supposes. He doesn’t consider himself unfair, or cruel without warrant, but still the dismissiveness of Ben’s remark strikes a flare of defensiveness inside him. He feels oddly inadequate, as though he could and ought to be meaner. Though he isn’t sure just where the connection was made, his mind drifts to his father. Father isn’t cruel either. He, too, is fair Armitage finds himself defending. And yet, the small seed of doubt harbored shamefully in his mind for years now pesters, _What if he isn’t?_

Armitage shakes his head, physically warding the thought and burying it as far as he might. “You’re quite rude yourself,” he says to Ben, fighting the sudden sourness that’s taken hold of him. “Prodding into others’ business all the time.”

“Am I?” Ben asks, taking no offense because of course _he_ wouldn’t. He sounds amused, even.

“Yes.” Armitage confirms, bluntly, before permitting himself to lie down. Grass tickles the back of his neck as his towel is laid horizontally and Ben occupies the other half, but he doesn’t care.

Ben doesn’t join him on the ground, and for this Armitage is grateful. It is likely they’ve already made something of a scene out here. No need to add to it. Already, Armitage dreads the conversation that will rise at lunch if any other Counselors in Training catch wind of his hospitality towards Ben. Their theories might revolve around Ben having harassed him into submission, or Armitage having lost his edge. In a way, both are true, but neither are conversations he wants to have.

Overhead, the sky is a bright, painful blue. It’s only natural Armitage’s eyes should slip shut. There is the factor of his current fatigue, too.

For a while it is peaceful. Armitage drifts away from both himself and his responsibilities, lost to the heat of the sun on his skin, the distant whispers of high-up breezes, and the ever-present hum of frogs and insects. After all his years at this camp, Armitage is confident he could identify all of them given the chance.

His peace is interrupted, naturally, by Ben who asks, “Are you asleep?”

Begrudgingly, Armitage cracks open one eye to glare. “No.”

Ben raises a brow, appearing suspicious of his answer, but eventually diverts his attention to the lake. Armitage wonders if he’s been staring at it this entire time.

There is but a week left of camp, and four more mornings at the lake. Ben will have to sit out of all of them. Though this is his first time at camp, it will be his last, too, given his age. Seven days from now, he’ll be taken back home, and just like Armitage, he won’t be returning. Peculiarly, panic strikes Armitage at the recognition that this is all temporary. That, despite his overwhelming presence now, Ben will soon cease to be a part of his world forever.

For all of the stress Ben’s caused him, this ought to be a relief.

It isn’t.

Armitage opens both of his eyes and sits up, unable to relax back into his prior lull following this train of thought. After straightening himself by correcting his posture, drawing his legs back in, and tugging his shorts back down to conceal his pale, pink, and peeling thighs, he joins Ben in his sad behavior, staring morosely out over the lake. After only a minute, this action depresses him too much to continue, and he averts his gaze to the towel. In doing this, he recognizes that he and Ben’s hands have settled inches apart.

Ben, following his gaze, observes the same. His hand twitches as though abstaining from action, and red in the face, Armitage quickly stuffs his own into his lap. He looks determinedly but unseeingly out to the lake again, and though he feels Ben’s eyes on him, refuses to react.

They sit like this for a long time. Ben looks away after a pitiful minute, and lifts his own hand as though to inspect it for defects. Something unspoken sits between them, something Armitage refuses to identify.

When the whistles sound, signalling that it’s time to return to camp, Armitage leaps up to sound his own. He’s relieved for the change of atmosphere, and for the opportunity now to leave whatever this had been behind him.

Ben takes his time in getting up.

After dropping his whistle from his lips to dangle again over his chest, Armitage shakes the sand from his towel, folds it, then drapes it over his shoulder. From the heat of both of their bodies, it’s as warm against his back as sun-baked asphalt. By the temperature outside, this should be unpleasant, yet Armitage finds the warmth almost pleasurable in a way which disturbs him.

Armitage grabs next from the ground the drawstring bag containing his sunscreen and change of clothes, but after slipping it onto one shoulder, hesitates. He looks briefly to all of the campers traveling leisurely up the beach, taking their time trekking to the showers. While reluctant, all know the routine by now, and thus Armitage no longer needs to herd them like he’d had to the first few days of camp. He has at least another minute out here, with Ben, and though he’d thought himself eager to flee, he deliberates instead.

Before him, Ben stretches shamelessly. He threads his fingers above his head, and arches his chest towards the sky. A sickening series of cracks follows this action. Armitage grimaces, briefly rethinking what he’s considering, but when Ben takes his first step away from him and back towards camp, a panicked “Wait-” is forced from his lips.

Ben stops immediately. He turns his head back towards Armitage, a quizzical expression upon his face. His curious eyes, somehow simultaneously coy and unreserved, only distract Armitage, further delaying the words he’s terrified to speak. Armitage’s heart hammers in his chest. His palms begin to sweat, while his indecisive thoughts brew disorder in his mind. To ensure no one but Ben is near enough to hear him speak, he glances quickly around them. Then, before he can reconsider, he blurts, “Meet me at the start of the trails tonight. Eleven o’clock.”

Ben’s eyes widen, and his eyebrows threaten to vacate his forehead.

Armitage feels his face heat at this reaction, and scowls. “Stop that,” he threatens, uselessly. “Just - bring your bloody bathing suit and _try,_ for _once in your life,_ to be subtle.”

Ben continues to stare in surprise, and Armitage locks eyes with him, staring tensely. What if he’s miscalculated? Armitage’s nails dig into his palms in apprehension, but then Ben is grinning at him, smile wide and warm and crooked and disarming. “Okay,” the camper answers easily.

Armitage exhales heavily from his nose. His body slackens with relief, and dropping eye contact, he offers a stiff, “Good,” before slinging his bag the rest of the way on. He hurries past Ben before humiliation can burn him any further to a crisp.

What was he thinking?  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is all but done, so it should be out much much sooner. I'm speaking like, before next friday. 
> 
> anyways, hoping this tided y'all off until then! thanks for your patience!
> 
> ([obligatory chapter moodboard](http://42dicks.tumblr.com/post/163264039800))


	6. moonstruck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> moon·struck  
> /ˈmo͞onˌstrək/  
>  _adjective_
> 
> 1\. unable to think or act normally, especially because of being in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *drops this 4 months late and fucking runs*

  
  
  
Ben hops from the cabin porch soundlessly, dodging the creaky steps leading down to the ground and landing in tall, dewy grass which tickles his bare ankles. He breathes in the night air, relieved. Though there had been a close call, he’s made it out of his cabin alive.

Halfway through Ben’s escape from his cabin, Lewis had rolled over in his bunk to face him, alerted by a squeal of the front door’s hinges. In this moment Ben had stood petrified, unable to tell if Lewis’s eyes were open or shut in the dark, if he was awake or asleep, before a snuffled snore gave his status away. With panicked sweat cooling on his skin, Ben had slipped out the door then, gripping its handle still deathly tight. Wary of provoking the age-warped hinges a second time, he’d wriggled through without pressing it any wider.

Rising from the crouch he’s landed in, Ben looks around. This late at night, the camp is desolate. The trail running between the cabins is vacant, and beyond the calls of insects and frogs, and the subtle creaks of settling cabins and trees, the camp is silent. Where Ben stands now, and all the way down to the bathrooms, the trail is lit by the occasional lamp. Past the bathrooms, however, the trail dips into darkness, darkest where the woods begin, where Ben is headed. Eyeing the trees there uneasily, Ben rubs his palms over his upper arms against a perceived chill.

It takes a moment for Ben to will himself away from the relative safety of his cabin and out into the night. He presses through the grass for now, feeling too exposed on the path but following still alongside it. He isn’t too worried about getting caught, yet. If anyone spots him out here, he can still claim he’s headed to take a piss, and hope that they don’t notice he’s in his swim trunks. Once he passes the bathrooms, though, he’ll be fucked for excuses. With a steadying huff, Ben carries on, apprehensive, but of things other than getting in trouble.

Despite his anxious pace, it takes Ben several minutes to reach the start of the woods. He steps back onto the path as he arrives, the tightly bracketing trees on either side leaving little room for divergence. Where he stands now, at the forest’s mouth, the bathrooms sit behind him, and the trees loom before him menacingly. In the nighttime breeze, they sway and hiss, giving Ben the illusion they’re _breathing_. He gets the unshakeable feeling he’s about to let them swallow him whole.

To settle his nerves, Ben reminds himself he’d been lost in these same woods the night before, and that nothing bad had happened to him. Last night, though, he realizes, he hadn’t been _alone_.

Ben swallows, feeling childish. He wavers on his feet, steps from entering the woods, with his arms wrapped tight around his chest and his hands tucked into his armpits. He reassures himself, poorly, that he won’t be alone for long, that he is a little late, both because he couldn’t find his dumb socks, and because of stupid Lewis, and that Armitage is probably already waiting for him at the start of the trails. Ben is doubtful of his own promises, but imagining Armitage impatient ahead of him is motivation enough to get him to unlock and hurriedly enter the woods.

The further into the woods Ben goes, the more his fear of them ebbs. The trees don’t swallow him up, not literally, and no claws snare his ankles to drag him off the path (though a few roots, invisible in the dark, do trip him up). His nerves, however, don’t ease entirely. Immediate threats of the dark disregarded, Ben grows cognizant of his true fear; that Armitage won’t show. Though he struggles to convince himself that Armitage won’t stand him up, it’s a difficult task. Armitage is capable of cruel things. He’s capable of sending Ben out here to look like an idiot, to drive home the point that he doesn’t want him around, or even to get him kicked out of camp so he won’t ever have to see him again. These thoughts, adamant, curl Ben’s hands into fists at his sides. Still, he continues walking, clinging determinedly to the shallow faith that maybe things will go right, for once.

Soon, Ben reaches the short hill sloping up to the wooden signpost at the start of the trails. Obscured by the incline, everything beyond the hill is invisible to Ben, and so what waits at the top remains a gut curling mystery. By now, his fists have balled so tightly with dread his fingers ache, and his nails have carved worried crescents into the flesh of his palms. Still, he’s driven to know what awaits him up there, for better or worse.

As he climbs the hill, Ben strains for a glimpse of Armitage in the dark. He listens intently, too, for footsteps or voice, anything telling. In the end, he detects neither, and the sight which awaits him as he breaks the hill causes his steps to slow, and his heart to plummet in his chest.

Beside the signpost sits nothing but shadows.

As Ben processes this view, a suddenly hollow feeling overtakes him. Steps from the vacant meeting spot, his numbly trodding feet plod to a stop. Though he resists, still his eyes begin to burn. Fat tears build quickly, threatening to overflow, and Ben’s swift to admonish himself for them. No, _fuck this_. He’s not sad, and he’s not fucking disappointed, either. He’s pissed. He’s pissed at Armitage for having set him up, and at himself for having been so gullible. He’s pissed that he’d gotten his hopes up, spent the entire afternoon excited for this. He’s pissed that he’d ever cared, and that he _still_ cares.

Ben crunches his eyes shut and shakes with the frustration rattling through his being. His hands rise to scrub harshly at his leaking eyes, then slip higher still to clutch his hair in tight fists. Anger builds cancerously within him, but there’s no one to lash out at but himself. Himself, and the stupid fucking signpost that’s grown somehow to be a symbol of his naivety. Ben kicks it once for good measure. Then, he kicks it again. At his third kick, he strikes the wood too solidly, sending pain radiating up his foot. Swearing, he stops, and defeated, he sinks to the ground. He curls into an awkward heap at the base of the signpost.

Back to the wood, Ben draws his knees in close to his chest then tucks his head down. One of his arms he curls tightly around his shins, while his free hand clutches his aching foot through his sneaker.

Stupid. _Stupid._

Body coiled tightly as though to contain everything, Ben trembles, and allows his gathering wave of emotions to drown him. Consumed, he forgets both where and who he is before a harsh whisper cuts through the heavy summer air.

_“Ben!”_

Ben stills, and quiets his ragged breathing. He opens his eyes but doesn’t dare yet to lift his head, fearful he’s only imagining things. Regardless, his ears listen for anything more, recklessly hopeful.

Undeniably, there are footsteps now, crunching along the dirt path. They approach, foot by foot, before stopping just in front of him. Above himself, Ben hears a familiar, exasperated sigh, and at this huff of air, he glances sheepishly up.

Before Ben, Armitage stands, appearing tenser than usual. Meeting Armitage’s gaze, Ben offers a small smile which does little to disguise the obvious tear tracks along his cheeks. He can almost make out the glint of the eyeroll this action earns him through the dark.

“...I didn’t _intend_ on being so late,” Armitage announces after a moment. He releases a second sigh with his words, and Ben realizes then that he’s winded, as though he’d rushed here. “I’m usually more punctual than this,” Armitage hurries to disclaim, “just - Phasma caught me outside the cabin and I don’t know _how_ but she _knows_ something and I-” He breaks off here, refocusing on Ben and correcting what was growing to be a near frantic tone. “I also assumed, wrongly, that you’d be fine without me for a few minutes. Can I even trust you in the lake?”

“”Lake?” Ben inquires unnecessarily. He ignores the jab Armitage left him and smudges the tears from his face with the heel of his hand.

“ _Yes,_ ” Armitage answers, his irritation as feigned as Ben’s cluelessness. “Don’t make me reconsider it. You brought your shorts?”

Ben grins, then rising, gestures to his swim trunks.

Armitage looks him over, his lips parted on the beginning of a thought, then affirms, “Good. Let’s go, then.”

As he rises, Ben notes that Armitage also wears his own swim trunks. He wonders, then, if tonight he’ll finally see him in the water. Armitage had swum only once in front of him, and Ben had been unconscious for the ordeal. He barely even recalls the walk to the Nurse’s he _had_ been conscious for. To learn the details of his rescue, Ben’s relied on rumors the other campers told. Stories told in which Armitage had been revolted to touch him are the ones he hates the most.

Following Armitage’s declaration to leave, there’s an awkward pause. Both boys hover on the trail, ready to move though neither are willing to budge first. Eventually, Armitage takes the initiative, starting them down the path with a put-upon breath. Relieved, albeit a little guilty, Ben follows after.

As the pair walk, neither speak, but they keep even pace with one another. It’s an action both had learned the night before. Last afternoon, initially, Ben had walked too quickly, determined to reach the waterfall whether or not Armitage followed him. Then, it was Armitage who, eager to leave the woods, all but abandoned Ben in his haste to do so. At some point, likely because they’d both been joined at the hand, they’d acquiesced to each other’s rhythm. Tonight, though they aren’t touching, this balance comes naturally.

(Ben still wishes, guiltily, there existed another excuse for contact.)

For the lacking conversation between them, and for his own curiosity, Ben observes Armitage as they walk. The Counselor in Training holds a stiff gait, and a stiff lower lip, both of these things betraying a nervousness Ben finds unwarranted. Obviously, Armitage isn’t in trouble yet, or else he wouldn’t have made it this far. While he could still be _afraid_ of getting in trouble, the same fear which had paralyzed him the night before, tonight was _his_ idea. Whatever’s bothering him must be more than the fact that he’s breaking the rules he so strictly adheres to. For fear of driving Armitage away, Ben never asks him what’s wrong, but his concern lingers.

Not far of a walk from the signpost, the lake comes soon into view, visible alongside the path through patches in the trees. The water is black without the sun’s rays to cast is blue, and reflects in bright fragments the light of a moon nearly full. Ben finds it mesmerizing. He’s as drawn to the dark body of water as he is a bit wary of it. He’s never seen it before at night, or even at dusk, the camp’s lake time scheduled rigidly in the afternoon. He wonders if Armitage ever has, as the Counselor in Training appears unaffected by the view.

By the time they reach the parting in the trees serving an entrance onto the lake’s sandy, grassy beach, both Ben and Armitage are breathing somewhat heavily from the eager pace they’ve maintained. Immediately, Ben jogs closer to the water, stumbling out of his sneakers and socks as he goes, and abandoning them wherever they land. He’s excited, despite everything. Up until Armitage’s tense invitation this afternoon, he’d been convinced he’d never swim in this lake again. Now, he gets to swim here under the added thrill of nighttime, and away from all the campers who’d always ruined it for him during the day.

Ben slows only as he reaches the lake’s edge. He steps cautiously into the cold shallows, then stops to peel off his shirt. From the corner of his vision, he spots Armitage on the beach a distance behind him. He’s approaching the water, but doing so at a much more reluctant pace than Ben had. As Ben turns to toss his shirt to shore, he watches Armitage’s begrudging steps plod to a stop. Armitage’s arms are wound tight around his chest, and a frown is clear upon his sour face. He acts more like he’s approaching his own execution than like he’s joining Ben for a late night swim.

As his bunched-up, yellow shirt lands with a muted thump atop the sand, Ben displays his own frown. He feels embarrassed, now, for his rampant enthusiasm, as it’s clear Armitage doesn’t share it. Hoping to lighten things, and maybe to coax Armitage from his baseless unease, he teases, “The moon’s not gonna burn you, you know.”

Armitage scowls at this, but after a wary glance around himself, pointedly removes his shirt in retort. He folds it against his stomach before setting it down on the sand, then his arms, unoccupied, snake tightly back around his chest. They’re positioned like he’s cold, or like he’s trying to hide himself from view. From his pout to his posture, he still looks completely miserable. Ben just doesn’t get it.

On the weak hope that perhaps Armitage will follow him in if he leaves him alone, Ben eventually turns back around, and sloshes deeper into the murky lake. Against the quiet of the night, and with Armitage’s attention on him, Ben’s movements feel loud and inelegant. Still, he continues. By the time the icy water laps at his navel, sending a ripple of goosebumps up his chest, Armitage, behind him, has brought himself to the lake’s edge, but stands still on the beach.

Ben releases a heavy sigh, one he half hopes, bitterly, that Armitage catches. Why can’t he just fucking relax? Or say something, at least?

Agitated, Ben turns again to face Armitage. He just wants to fucking enjoy himself, and he was hoping, impossibly, that Armitage might enjoy himself, too. Of course this is turning out to be another time Ben’s wished for more than the world will give him. Though he knows by now he can’t salvage things, his mouth runs all the same. Toes curled tightly in the sand beneath him, he shouts at Armitage, “I know you can swim!” His words, fueled by frustration, exit a little louder than what’s necessary to cover the distance between them. “So what the fuck’s your problem? I mean, are you afraid of the water at night, or something?” Ben knows this isn’t the case, but hopes he might get Armitage to confess _something_.

“No!” Armitage barks back from the shore, indignant. “Of course not!” His voice, raised also, is louder than Ben knew it could get, and his brows, golden in the moonlight, are furrowed in a way that inappropriately amuses Ben.

“Then what’s stopping you?” Ben retorts, the anger in his voice steadily giving way to a desperation. “Just get in! It’s not even that cold!” _This_ is a lie, if Ben’s subtly trembling lower lip has a voice in the matter, but Armitage doesn’t need to know that, yet.

Armitage shifts his weight on the sand, appearing conflicted. His eyes travel from Ben’s face down to the lake he stands in. “I’d rather not,” he confesses at last, quieter, though he doesn’t sound so sure of his stance.

Ben’s determined to see him enjoy himself. Just once, before camp ends.

“This whole thing was your fucking idea in the first place!” Ben argues, perhaps a little too aggressively. “You’re seriously gonna break the rules you’re so fucking fond of, and not even get your feet wet?”

Armitage’s eyes return to Ben, flashing him a lethal glare Ben knows is due to the logic of his last statement. Armitage’s ire scalds, it always does, but it’s all worth it when a few minutes later the Counselor in Training shuffles unenthusiastically into the water.

Of course, he stops just a few stops in, his thin, stubborn arms still constricting his chest.

Ben’s shoulders slump in disappointment, and nearly in defeat, but he hasn’t given up yet.

Following a moment spent staring dejectedly at both Armitage and the dark water licking his pale shins, an idea strikes Ben. It’s the sort of idea that might make Armitage permanently resent him, but there’s a chance it might work, and it’s a chance Ben is willing to take.

Behaving as though he’s still irritated at the other, Ben moves back into the shallows and nearer to the determinedly rigid Counselor in Training. A few feet before him, he stops, and ignoring him, plunges his hands into the water. He acts like he’s going to rinse his face in the lake, or wet his hair, and while he does neither, he still hopes Armitage holds this impression.At least long enough for Ben to carry this out.

This close to action, Ben freezes, his heart thudding audibly in his chest with the recognition of all the ways this could go wrong. Subtly, though the mess of hair hanging before his eyes, he peers upwards to check on Armitage. Armitage stands staring at him, a suspicious brow raised at his actions, though he remains unamused, unimpressed, and most importantly, unsuspecting. He seems blind to what Ben has planned, which makes this a world easier.

Beneath the water, Ben cups his hands side by side and seals his fingers together. Carefully, he spreads his stance, then steals a deep breath.

Armitage will probably fucking kill him for this.

And yet, this knowledge doesn’t stop Ben.

Mentally, Ben counts down from five, still as a rock as he does so. Upon reaching zero, before he can think better of it, his hands shoot from the lake, catapulting a wave of freezing water across Armitage’s front. It soaks his once-dry chest and shorts, and some arcs high enough, even, to splatter his face and hair.

Nearly shaking in the wake of his misdeed, Ben straightens himself warily. His eyes are glued, in simultaneous fascination and horror, to Armitage’s expression.

For a moment, Armitage stands still in shock. His pale eyes are open wide, his arms outstretched on a halted reflex, and his lips are parted for words that haven’t yet arrived. Armitage’s left eye twitches, and at this sight, Ben can no longer contain his amusement. A wide grin splits his own face, serving a poor dam to the snicker building behind it.

Observing Ben’s delight at his own misfortune, Armitage’s expression twists into one of rage. His brows furrow tightly, his cheeks patch with red, and his lips curl into a near snarl. “Ben,” he starts, quietly. His tone’s utter lack of inflection makes it chilling.

Ben has pulled enough pranks in his fifteen years to know his role now in this game. After staring a moment longer, solidifying to memory the pissed and sodden other, he twists sharply in the water to make his escape. His heart leaps triumphantly to hear, seconds later, splashing signifying Armitage in pursuit.

“Ben!” This time, Armitage growls his name, his frustration evident.

Ben laughs, and focuses on keeping ahead of his reach.

In a motion neither running nor swimming, Ben stumbles through the water as fast as he can manage. As he moves, his feet slip over the sand, kicking up invisible clouds in their wake. He finds himself breathless from his efforts to simultaneously laugh and evade Armitage’s wrath.

Ben makes it no farther than to chest-deep water before Armitage catches up to him, throwing a wave of his own. It’s smaller than the one Ben had produced - it’s clear Armitage is less practiced - but Ben, having just wheeled around to learn just how in-danger he was, received it full in the face. Still laughing, he inhales a portion of the assault, and his next minute is spent gulping for air, a grin still mostly pasted on his face as he coughs himself red.

Armitage, appearing for a moment unsure as to whether he’d just unwittingly drowned Ben, waits for him to recover, pausing where he stands. He doesn’t recognize yet his error in letting his guard down. After Ben has at last recovered his breath, he shoots the other a mischievous glance. Then, with no further precedent, he ducks into the lake.

Ben opens his eyes under the water, but can’t see a damn thing. He’s near enough to Armitage though that, reaching out in his vague direction, his fingers eventually scrape his shin. At the touch, Armitage jerks away, and from above, Ben hears his muffled yelp. He fights not to snicker at the sound, not wanting to drown before he finishes his task.

Though Armitage has recoiled, Ben rediscovers his leg quickly, and grips it fast with both hands. Then, with all the strength he can muster, he yanks the other boy under the water.

While the lake mutes the sound, Armitage’s indignant squawk as he’s dunked remains audible. Releasing his leg before he’s kicked, Ben pushes away from Armitage’s flailing limbs, and resurfaces, waiting for the other to do the same.

Seconds later, Armitage breaks the surface sputtering, his eyes wide and and wild, and his hair, plastered wet to his skull, a new, darker shade of auburn. His bangs, free of the usual hold he gels them into, dangle over his eyes. They resemble the ruined mane of a soggy lion. Armitage sweeps them away to blink the water from his lashes, then glares at Ben.

“I thought you could swim,” Ben taunts, dancing away from Armitage after Armitage lunges at him for the comment.

“I _can,_ dammit,” Armitage growls, and this is as much of a warning as Ben receives before Armitage lunges again, his hands catching Ben hard in the chest.

Ben flounders, shouting a sound both startled and amused as his face nearly slips beneath the surface. Before he’s quite collected his balance, and before Armitage can retreat back to safety, Ben’s hands catch the back of his head, and dunk him a second time in revenge. The words of triumph Armitage was about to speak are drowned by the act. In their place emerges an enraged gurgle which sets Ben snickering anew.

This continues for a period of time Ben couldn’t hope to guess. Like the minnows circling the shallows of the lake, they dart about one another in the water. Frequently, they collide, pushing or shoving, or splashing in self-defense. As the match continues, Ben laughs so hard his chest aches. His throat and lungs burn both from too much water inhaled, and his nose streams snot, but none of it matters.

Their game Armitage takes more seriously than Ben. He takes each small victory Ben amanges personally, and yet, his eyes shine all the same. An uncharacteristic smile tugs at his lips that he either hasn’t recognized yet, or is too tired or too happy to conceal, and the sight of it has Ben elated.

Though neither of them truly wields an upperhand, Ben, both a little broader than Armitage, and experienced in rough housing having grown up alongside his cousin Rey and his Uncle Chewie, holds something of an advantage. As he tires, though, this advantage means less and less. While Armitage, too, grows somewhat sloppy with exhaustion, he remains just as fiercely determined to win the match as he’d been when they’d begun. Ben, meanwhile, cares less and less who emerges triumphant, happy simply to have this. It is as he steals a brief time-out, backing away, his hand outstretched in a universal symbol to pause so he can sweep his heavy, knotted, dripping hair from his face, that Armitage plays his own trick against him.

Chest heaving, limbs heavy, but hair tackled back enough he can continue to wrestle unhindered, Ben drops his hand from his scalp, and looks about to find Armitage gone. Completely. Owlishly, he blinks once, then twice, alarm late to find him but striking him hard. As he wheels about to extend his search, slender fingers close around his ankle, and too late he realizes his mistake. Unsettled weight unbalanced by a sharp tug, Ben goes under the water with a yelp of surprise, and, predictably, swallows a bit too much of it.

After Ben, disoriented in the black water, finally claws his way back to the surface, he hacks for a solid minute, his throat aflame. When he finally recovers, he peeks at Armitage through the web of hair matted over his face, and discovers Armitage is _laughing._ Though every inch of his body stings or aches, triumph, pride, and joy well in Ben’s chest at the sight.

Armitage’s full, raucous laughter carries on for an almost cruel amount of time before receding, but eventually, breathless and beaming, he ceases and begins babbling pridefully on his achievement.

Ben doesn’t follow most of what he says, still dizzy from both all his time spent underwater as well as the novel sight of Armitage in such a state. He picks out enough to recognize most of the words are needlessly mean at his own expense, but he couldn’t care less. Armitage is still _smiling,_ unabashed and free in a way Ben has never seen him. His shoulders are loose, his perpetual scowl, gone, and for once he’s simply _happy_ , no weights attached.

Drinking a vicarious joy from the scene, Ben is grinning himself, and draws unconsciously nearer to Armitage, moth to flame. Still bragging, Armitage continues on, though Ben registers his words less and less each passing second. Light-headed still, and out-of-tune with his own movements, he pitches towards Armitage. It’s only when they stand nose-to-nose that he recognizes what he’s done.

Armitage, recognizing their abrupt proximity at the same time, falls silent.

Both blink.

Ben stares, eyes wide and breath caught in his chest because he’s stuck now. He can’t make a graceful exit, or any exit at all. Avoiding the bewildered, icy gaze Armitage meets him with, Ben’s eyes fall to Armitage’s lips and see them twitch on the beginning of a protest. He isn’t ready to hear it. He isn’t ready for this moment to end. Without thinking, he pecks Armitage swiftly on the lips, thwarting his words before they can begin.

The kiss is curt, the first Ben’s ever had, and he’s not even truly aware it’s happened until he draws back a few inches, numb, initially. The first thing he does is swallow. Then, his face beginning to burn a dark, dark red, the second thing he does is anxiously search Armitage’s expression, what he’s done finally hitting him.

Before Ben, Armitage stands utterly still. His smile is gone now, and in its place, a slackened, speechless mouth sits. His cheeks patch steadily with red, coloring differently than Ben’s own, and as time catches up to them both, Ben can only stare. Horrified and heartsick, he watches as Armitage’s brows draw low and his lips curl into a shape frighteningly angry.

Ben stumbles backwards through the water the second he recalls his feet. The heat in his face has spread to his ears, while panic, cold and leaden, pools everywhere else. He’s ruined it, ruined the first good thing to happen to him in months, ruined Armitage’s moment of joy, ruined everything because he never fucking _thinks_ before he acts. Ben has to go. He has to go he has to _go_.

Before Armitage can summon the words to scold him, to reject him, to smear salt all over the wound Ben had opened himself, Ben whips around in the water, and flees. He can’t listen to what Armitage has to say. He can’t listen, because he already _knows_ what’s going to come out. He already _knows_. Armitage doesn’t want him. Armitage doesn’t even _like_ him. He never has.

Numbly, Ben fights his way towards shore. He hears a muffled shout behind him, close in sound and length to his name, though he doesn’t know for sure what’s been said. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is getting to shore, getting _away_. Maybe he’ll take the path deeper into the woods. Maybe he’ll hide in the showers. He’ll go anywhere, so long as Armitage can’t look at him and he can be alone with his mistakes.

The splashing Ben hears behind himself he assumes is from his own clumsy kicking through the water, at least, until something brushes his ankle. Reflexively, he kicks backwards at the sensation, and washes with alarm to discover he’s connected with something solid. Cartilage clicks beneath Ben’s heel, and with dread, he stills immediately. Sinking back down towards the sand, Ben’s foot aches from its contact with some part of Armitage, and unable to even glance at the second dose of damage he’s delivered in minutes, he stands rigid.

Sensing Armitage directly behind him, Ben stands tense, body strung and braced for anything. He expects maybe to be hit, and more than likely to be shouted at, but the only thing Armitage does is hiss a pissed and nasally, _”Fuck!”_

Ben says nothing in reply. His eyes, unfocused, see only the beach ahead of him, the one he didn’t reach in time to avoid this confrontation. Armitage huffs heavily behind him. The hairs on the back of Ben’s neck raise. He stays quiet.

“...Ben,” Armitage starts eventually, bearing the tone Mom always uses when Ben knows she wants to throttle him, but, unfairly to them both, is attempting to lecture him instead. Ben shuts his eyes. He wishes he were anywhere else. Any _one_ else.

“Ben,” Armitage repeats, and Ben digs his nails stubbornly into his palm and he keep silent still.

Armitage loses patience quickly, demanding coldly, “Ben _fucking_ Solo. Turn around.”

Ben considers refusing. He considers remaining just as he fucking is. He considers unlocking from whatever has him frozen here, and stomping back to shore. He does none of these things. Instead, after several seconds, he turns around. He opens his eyes, but keeps them ardently fixed upon the water. He can’t look at Armitage. Not now. Not ever again.

He startles when a hand catches his cheek, cupped under his jaw. It’s a touch hesitant at first, but quickly firm. Armitage guides Ben’s face up, and Ben can’t keep his curious eyes from darting up to meet him. He gleans but a split-second glance, not enough to glimpse anything more than Armitage’s eyes flitting shut, his face surging towards him.

As Armitage’s lips crash over his unexpectedly, surprisingly hot in contrast to the cold water droplets beaded over them both, an embarrassing, startled sound works past the lump in Ben’s throat. Ben recognizes, distantly, that he should probably close his eyes, that he should probably move his lips, that his nose has collided directly with Armitage’s and that he should probably correct the angle, but his mouth is dry, his body is frozen, his fingers are caught on Armitage’s chest somehow, and his heart has caught utterly in his throat. Thankfully, Armitage spares him, hands that feel somehow as warm as his mouth slipping up his jaw to frame his ears between their fingers. Something in Ben dissolves at this touch, a hot shudder rippling through his frame. His shoulders drop, his eyes shut at last, and his lips part in a shaky exhale, leaving room for Armitage to quickly swipe his tongue behind his teeth.

When they separate, Armitage drawing back and his hands falling onto Ben’s shoulders, Ben feels hazy, simultaneously heavy and weightless, hot and cold. Though he opens his own eyes slowly, wary still of what he might see, his skin feels aflame and his teeth chatter; something he does he best to stop, certain it will annoy Armitage somehow.

“Move your lips next time,” Armitage grouses, though the usual edge to his tone is subdued.

Ben’s vision refocuses, settling on the face just inches from him, on eyes whose fire isn’t gone, but changed, tamed, replaced by something Ben inexplicably needs more of. Armitage’s pupils are wide, his lips, shiny and parted. His cheeks, red, are washed gray by the nighttime, and, Ben realizes guiltily, his nostrils both are framed by blood; his own doing. Ben reaches up to touch, no longer thinking to keep his hands off, no longer thinking at all. He skims the back of his knuckles over one heated cheekbone, and feels Armitage quake ever so subtly beneath his hand.

Armitage’s eyes narrow at the touch, still dark, but suddenly wary. His hands tighten on Ben’s shoulders, as though preparing to shove him away, but he never does, and so Ben doesn’t stop. In this moment, he feels a strange responsibility, feels for once he has as much the power to devastate Armitage as Armitage does to devastate him, and he has no clue what to do with it.

The impulse rises to kiss Armitage again although Ben chickens out of the attempt last minute, planting an awkward kiss to Armitage’s cheek instead. He considers pulling away then, but recognizing that such an act will obligate him to speak, he kisses his cheek again, once, twice, three times. He doesn’t have words to describe the enormity of what he’s feeling, doubts he ever will, but hopes that maybe this is enough to communicate what he feels.

It's nowhere near enough.

Armitage, for the process, remains silent and strangely still. Ben pulls away from him eventually, a nervous knot tightening his stomach at the prospect that perhaps he’s pushed his luck too far. He searches Armitage’s face again, just as curious as he is afraid, and more concerned for Armitage, he realizes, than he is fearful of being lashed at.

It is Armitage’s proud lower lip which catches Ben’s eyes first, jutted defiantly outward, but trembling. Around this, Armitage wears a scowl. It seems more in response to himself than at anything Ben’s done. He’s fighting something internally, just what, Ben doesn’t recognize until he observes just how shiny Armitage’s eye have grown. How _wet_.

Ben aches instantly for Armitage. Lost, stricken, and unaware what boundaries do and should remain between them, his hands find Armitage’s face, drawn inexplicably and irresistibly to his skin. He smooths his thumb over Armitage’s lip, as though to still it, as though to permit this moment of weakness. Ben doesn’t realize he’s hushed Armitage until after the whispered noise has already fallen from his mouth. This one, simple gesture is all it takes for Armitage’s resolve to break.

Ben doesn’t know what’s wrong, not really, but he draws Armitage close anyways, and allows him to cry into his shoulder. His tears feel hot as they land. Ben lets Armitage shudder in his hold, lets him dig his nails into his back although it hurts. He only hushes him again, and smooths his awkward fingers over his back, between his protruding shoulder blades. Ben’s own eyes grow wet as he feels everything for himself, too, the way he always has.

Eventually, Armitage composes himself and withdraws from Ben’s embrace with a large, graceless sniffle. His arms, twining around his own chest, perpetuate their once-hug. His shoulders are drawn painfully tight, and his arms, once they lift to Ben, are razor-sharp. As Armitage wipes roughly at his face, he wears a silent dar for Ben to speak a word on what just occurred. Ben doesn’t antagonize him this time, and mumbles instead about a fish he thinks just bit his toe.

At the first, derisive snort from Armitage, he knows everything’s going to be okay.

In silent, mutual agreement, their toes pruned and their bodies tired, they eventually trudge back to shore. Ben recognizes as Armitage withdraws his own from his bag that he’d forgotten to bring a towel. While he stands dripping on the sand, Armitage dries off beside him, but to Ben’s surprise, he offers the towel to him afterwards. Though it’s cold and damp, it does a half-decent job.

Afterwards, Armitage settles on the sand, his knees drawn to his chest and a pensive gaze fixed upon the lake. Ben sits down beside him, mimicking the position only briefly before opting to lay on his back, instead. His eyes widen when Armitage lays back too. Boldened, and a little giddy, Ben tilts the hand which lies between them palm-up; an offer. He can’t help but to grin when Armitage’s fingers slot between his seconds later.

Ben itches to ask a million questions. He wants to know what this makes them, wants to know why Armitage had kissed him at all. He wants to know if Armitage is still mad about his nose, if it hurts. Of Ben’s every worry, however, the latent cause of Armitage’s tears is most pressing. He’s terrified that he’d done something wrong to cause them, even now.

Inevitably the question slips out before Ben has really formed it or thought it over. “Did I do something wrong?” He blurts. “With the… You, uh…” He finds he can’t phrase it out loud, feeling as though speaking about the action would be betraying Armitage’s privacy. “Are you okay?” He settles upon, finally.

Armitage exhales heavily at this, and turning his head, Ben watches his stomach deflate, his ribs protrude. His voice is soft, almost unnervingly resigned and drifty.

“You startled me,” Armitage admits, staring adamantly at the sky rather than at Ben. “The affection did,” he elaborates.

This confession hurts Ben. He finds himself caught between guilt and a strange form of outrage that Armitage isn’t adjusted to such things. It’s not that Ben wants him to have been kissing others, exactly - _had_ he kissed others? Boys? - but he doesn’t want _this_ , either.

Ultimately, Ben doesn’t know what to say, or what to do to make it right. He simply resolves to kiss Armitage more, if he ever gets to again, and squeezes Armitage’s hand. This prompts an amused huff from the other. Ben hopes it’s a good sign.

Minutes pass like this, or hours. Time feels different here, inconsequential. Though the nighttime sky here is clear and full of stars Ben can’t see at home, he’s unable to look away from Armitage’s face for more than a few seconds. At least, not until Armitage snaps at him to stop staring, and not for the first time since they’d met.

Small conversations pop up between them, all clipped, and paced by long stretches of silence and reflection in between. As Armitage alludes to home a few times, never giving much away, Ben wonders what things are like where he lives. He wonders about his father in particular, and about that time in the Nurse’s office when he’d said he likes him. Ben could tell he doesn’t, not really.

Ben wishes for a lot of things he cannot have, wishes to take Armitage home so that maybe he could meet his mom. He knows, intuitively, that she would care for him. She’s taken in so many strays over the years, Armitage would become just another adored child. More importantly, he would never have to leave. Ben wouldn’t have to be without him. Rather than voicing this, Ben comments on a dish his mom makes that Armitage would probably like. Armitage only snorts.

They return to their cabins only when their eyelids grow too heavy, and the weight of the air suggest an approaching dawn. Ben doesn’t wonder what time it is, doesn’t care. Instead, yawning, he voices his delirious desire for Armitage to sleep in his own bunk, and asks Armitage what it’s like in the cabin for the Counselor’s in Training.

Armitage, whose defenses are almost certainly down in exhaustion, says he would gladly replace Mitaka for Ben.

Dropping his head onto Armitage’s shoulder as they walk through the woods side-by-side, their hands still interlocked, Ben smiles dreamily at that.

At the end of the woods, they part just as they had the night before, except that this time, Ben presses a kiss to Armitage’s cheek. He vows silently to kiss him on the lips again soon, once he musters the courage.

Armitage’s cabin arises first, and Ben watches him slip stealthily inside before trekking back to his own. His feet, for the process, feel impossibly light. Once back in his own cabin, he strips out of his wet and clinging shorts, finds a pair of dry underwear, and crawls into bed. He feels as though he might float off if he doesn’t hold onto something. Bundling blankets it’s far too hot out to sleep under, and wrapping himself around them, he drifts off to sleep guiltlessly wishing he were holding Armitage instead.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on a scale of 1 to 10, just how gay would you rate this chapter? 
> 
> also, there is ART! done by my old friend immmaghost, like, a year ago when this fic was merely a concept. pleaaaaase go check it out [here.](https://immmaghost.tumblr.com/post/152861756401/the-wait-is-finally-over-malachi-this-is-part)
> 
> moodboard for the fic is [here.](http://42dicks.tumblr.com/post/168225715525)

**Author's Note:**

> you'll find a pretty sweet moodboard for the entire fic on my tumblr [here](http://42dicks.tumblr.com/post/156096908495). reblog it to embarrass yourself in front of your mutuals (but also to get the word around if you enjoy this fic. I'd really appreciate it.) 
> 
> thanks, as always, for reading.


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